Enclosure, Carrownaboll, Co. Sligo

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Carrownaboll, Co. Sligo

In a pasture field at Carrownaboll in County Sligo, there is a roughly circular earthwork that raises more questions than it answers.

The raised area measures approximately 35 metres north to south and 32 metres east to west, enclosed by a low scarp of earth and stone standing about 0.6 metres high on the exterior. What makes this particular enclosure quietly odd is that much of what now defines its boundary was not originally built as a boundary at all. The bank along the south-west to north-east edge appears to be upcast material thrown out from quarrying within the interior, meaning the digging itself accidentally reinforced the outline of the site.

Enclosures of this general type, a raised circular or subcircular area defined by an earthen bank and sometimes a fosse (a surrounding ditch), are found throughout Ireland and can date from the prehistoric period through to the early medieval. Here, however, there is no fosse visible at ground level, and the interior has been substantially hollowed out. The north-western third has been quarried away entirely, leaving a pit whose base sits roughly 0.5 metres below the level of the surviving south-eastern interior. Smaller quarry holes pepper the scarped edges on all sides, and whatever original entrance once allowed access to the site has been obscured beyond recognition. Whether the quarrying was extracting stone, gravel, or some other material is not recorded, but the effect has been to leave an enclosure that is partly defined by the very activity that destroyed it.

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Pete F
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