Enclosure, Carrowgilhooly, Co. Sligo

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Carrowgilhooly, Co. Sligo

On a west-facing ridge slope in the undulating pasture of Carrowgilhooly, County Sligo, there is a monument that no longer exists, at least not in any form the eye can follow.

The enclosure recorded here has been levelled entirely, leaving no trace at ground level. What makes it worth noting is not what survives but what the cartographic record reveals about what once stood.

The 1913 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map captured two conjoined enclosures on this hillside. Only the northeastern half of the second and larger of the two made it onto that sheet, but the map is clear enough about the relationship between them: the larger enclosure abutted the east-northeast side of the first, which was itself a rath. A rath is a roughly circular earthen enclosure, typically dating from the early medieval period and associated with farmsteads or settlement sites of some local standing. The pairing of two such enclosures, one adjoining the other, suggests a compound or expanded settlement, though the ground today offers no confirmation of that arrangement whatsoever.

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Pete F
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