Enclosure, Rochestown, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Enclosures
In a south-facing meadow in County Tipperary, a faint raised area in the grass is almost all that remains of an enclosure that once measured roughly 23 metres by 19 metres.
What makes it quietly compelling is the way it has been disappearing in stages, not through natural erosion alone, but through deliberate removal, a field boundary bisecting it, decades of agricultural use, and finally a levelling operation, leaving the land looking entirely ordinary for most of the year.
The enclosure appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1840, depicted as a roughly rectangular feature already cut through by an east-to-west field boundary. By the 1904-05 edition, only the northern half was being recorded at all. The southern portion had evidently gone by then, and according to the landowner, the remaining northern section was levelled in 1957. Two other monuments are visible from the site: Ballindoney Castle to the north-east and a ringfort to the east. A ringfort is a circular or roughly circular enclosed settlement, typically of early medieval date, defined by earthen banks or stone walls, and its proximity here hints at a wider pattern of early activity across this stretch of Tipperary farmland.
The enclosure is not entirely gone. A slightly raised area still marks where it stood, though for much of the year the ground gives little away. The landowner noted that during a dry summer the outline becomes considerably clearer, when differential moisture retention in the soil reveals the old boundaries as a cropmark or parchmark in the grass. It is the kind of site that rewards patience and the right season rather than a casual glance.
