Enclosure, Ballythomashill, Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford |
Ringforts
What survives at Ballythomashill is less than half of something that was once, presumably, whole.
A circular earthwork enclosure, roughly 45 metres across, was recorded here on the 1839 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, where it appears only as a faint circular feature, already reduced to a ghost of its former self. Today, just the north-western quadrant remains legible on the ground, a curved arc of earthwork running some 37 metres from north to west along the lower part of a south-west-facing slope in the north-south corridor of the Wicklow Gap.
The surviving section consists of a bank, a fosse, and a counterscarp bank. A fosse is simply a ditch, typically cut to define or defend an enclosure, with the upcast material forming the bank on one side and sometimes a smaller counterscarp bank on the outer edge. Here, the inner bank stands between half a metre and just over a metre above the interior ground level, and slightly higher on the external face. At the north-west there is an entrance gap about five metres wide, though the earthwork itself suggests this opening is probably not an original feature of the enclosure. More telling is the detail on the east side of the entrance, where the inner bank turns outward for nearly seven metres, a characteristic that sometimes indicates a deliberately funnelled or elaborated approach. The interior is grass-covered with scattered bushes. The enclosure has not been securely dated, but circular earthwork enclosures of this kind are broadly associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, often serving as the boundaries of farmsteads or small defended settlements.
The site sits low on a slope rather than on a commanding height, which is itself worth noting. The Wicklow Gap corridor is a natural routeway between counties, and a modest enclosure tucked into its margins would have sat quietly alongside whatever movement passed through, visible to those who knew to look, and easy to overlook for everyone else.