Enclosure, Windmill, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Windmill, Co. Tipperary

A low, largely levelled earthwork in a field of improved pasture might seem like an unremarkable feature of the Tipperary landscape, but this rectangular enclosure near Windmill sits in unusually dense company.

Within a few metres of its banks lie the remains of a hilltop enclosure to the west and, just nineteen metres to the north, the vestiges of a leper hospital. A disused quarry lies to the south-south-east. The Rock of Cashel, one of Ireland's most recognisable early medieval ecclesiastical sites, is clearly visible to the north from this east-facing slope.

The enclosure itself measures roughly 28 metres on its north-north-east to south-south-west axis and 24 metres across, defined by the remains of a bank that survives best along the western side, where it extends for 30 metres. The bank varies considerably depending on which side you measure: the western stretch has an internal height of around half a metre, while the southern and northern banks are considerably more worn, with internal heights of only about ten centimetres. The eastern boundary survives not as a bank at all but as a scarp, a natural or cut slope roughly four metres wide and nearly a metre high. An enclosure of this form and scale is a fairly common feature of the Irish landscape, typically associated with early medieval settlement or agricultural organisation, though the precise function and dating of this particular example are not recorded. What makes the spot quietly compelling is the clustering of monument types in such a small area, suggesting that this hillside, with its clear sightlines toward Cashel, was a place of sustained and varied human activity across a long period.

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Pete F
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