Enclosure, Townamulloge, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Townamulloge, Co. Wexford

A double-ditched enclosure in the Wexford countryside reveals itself not to the eye on the ground, but to the camera above.

In a field at Townamulloge, on a gentle south-west-facing slope, the faint cropmarks of two concentric circular ditches, or fosses, appear in satellite imagery captured in July 2018. Cropmarks form when buried features such as ditches or banks influence the growth of whatever is planted above them, creating subtle variations in colour or height that are invisible at ground level but readable from altitude. Here, the inner enclosure measures roughly 20 metres in diameter, while the outer fosse brings the total spread to approximately 40 metres across.

What makes the site quietly puzzling is its internal geometry. The inner enclosure sits eccentrically within the outer fosse, meaning it is not centred but offset, which is an arrangement occasionally seen in later prehistoric and early medieval enclosed settlements in Ireland and one that can signal phased construction or dual function. A north-east to south-west field bank cuts across the north-western edge of the site, truncating the inner enclosure and obscuring whatever lies beyond it; the features simply disappear north-west of that boundary. The enclosure was first identified by Simon Dowling, whose observation brought an otherwise unremarkable-looking parcel of farmland into the record of known archaeological sites in County Wexford.

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