Enclosure, Lisheen, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Enclosures
In the improved pasture near Lisheen, on a gentle rise in the Tipperary landscape, a modest oval hollow in the ground quietly refuses to be just a field.
What survives here is an ancient enclosure, the kind of earthwork that once defined a boundary between the inhabited and the open world, and it still carries enough physical presence to reward close attention. The outer fosse, a defensive or boundary ditch cut into the earth, survives in stretches to the north-northeast and southwest, measuring around 7.5 metres wide and 0.3 metres deep. The enclosing scarp, a low earthen edge or bank formed by the original cut, ranges from just over two metres to more than four metres in width and rises to about half a metre at its highest point. That may not sound imposing, but in a smoothed pastoral setting it is enough to read clearly.
What makes the site particularly interesting is the enclosure within the enclosure. A raised, sub-oval area roughly 10 metres east to west and 8 metres north to south sits inside the main oval, pressed against the northern scarp. Its own defining scarp is best preserved along a northwest-to-southeast line, and the interior is noticeably uneven, scattered with loose stones roughly 15 to 20 centimetres long. This nested arrangement, a smaller raised feature sitting inside a larger defined space, hints at a complexity of use or construction that a single pass across the field would not suggest. An aerial photograph taken in September 2002 adds another layer: it indicates that a second, neighbouring enclosure to the north may actually have surrounded the southern oval at some point, raising the possibility that what survives today is only part of a larger, more elaborate arrangement. Whether these were a single designed complex or features that accumulated over time remains an open question.