Enclosure, Lavagh, Co. Sligo

Co. Sligo |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Lavagh, Co. Sligo

On a north-facing terrace on the lower slopes of the Ox Mountains in County Sligo, a roughly oval enclosure sits in a state of quiet dissolution.

What was once a defined, bounded space, some 24 metres east to west and 16 metres north to south, has been sliced in two by a later field wall running north to south, a division that has left the site reading as two quite different things depending on which side of that wall you are standing.

The smaller, western portion retains the most legible evidence of the original structure. Here, a collapsed stone wall, between 1.4 and 3 metres wide but surviving to an internal height of only 25 to 45 centimetres, still traces the perimeter. In the larger eastern portion, the wall has all but disappeared, leaving only what surveyors call ephemeral traces, faint suggestions of something that was once substantial. The original entrance, wherever it was, is no longer recognisable. Enclosures of this kind, broadly circular or oval stone-walled spaces, are found across Ireland and can date from prehistory through to the early medieval period, often serving as farmsteads, animal enclosures, or settlement sites, though without excavation it is rarely possible to assign a precise function or date to any individual example. Adding another layer of complexity to the site is an abrupt drop in ground level, roughly 1.2 metres, located a short distance east of the dividing field wall. This appears to be an artificial scarp or quarry cut, running north to south for several metres, and its relationship to the enclosure itself is unclear.

The western section of the site now lies within a plantation of coniferous trees, which both obscures the stonework and preserves it from the kind of agricultural disturbance that has left the eastern half so difficult to read. The deep drain flanking the east side of the dividing field wall further complicates the ground, making the boundary between what is ancient and what is relatively recent harder to trace.

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