Enclosure, Ardogelly, Co. Sligo

Co. Sligo |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Ardogelly, Co. Sligo

In a field at Ardogelly in County Sligo, there is an enclosure that is easy to miss precisely because the land has done its best to swallow it.

What survives is a slightly raised subcircular platform, roughly 32 metres north to south and 27.6 metres east to west, sitting on a low rise in open pasture. On its western and northern sides, a scarp, essentially a short earthen drop or edge, still stands between 1.2 and 1.5 metres high, enough to register as something deliberate if you are paying attention. On the eastern and southern sides, even that much is gone, levelled so thoroughly that the original outline can only be traced with difficulty.

Enclosures of this kind are among the most common, and most quietly erased, features of the Irish landscape. Typically formed by a bank, ditch, or raised edge defining a roughly circular or oval area, they served a range of purposes across prehistory and the early medieval period, from farmsteads and cattle enclosures to spaces with ceremonial significance. The one at Ardogelly follows that broad subcircular form, though the levelling of its southern and eastern edges means the full shape is now more inferred than seen. A farm track runs along the southern side, which may partly account for the erosion in that direction, or may simply reflect the long habit of working around something whose original purpose was long forgotten.

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Pete F
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