Enclosure, Kilbrack, Co. Waterford

Co. Waterford |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Kilbrack, Co. Waterford

At the eastern edge of a low plateau in Kilbrack, County Waterford, there is an enclosure sitting inside another enclosure. That nesting arrangement is what makes this grass-covered site quietly odd. The inner feature is an oval earthwork, roughly 30 metres east to west and 20 metres north to south, defined by a low and widely spread bank. Around it sits a larger, broadly circular enclosure about 50 metres in diameter, and together the two occupy an overall footprint of around 63 by 64 metres. The relationship between the two rings, one contained within the other on the same plateau edge, raises questions that the landscape itself does not answer.

Enclosures of this kind are a recurring feature of the Irish countryside, their origins ranging from the early medieval period back into prehistory. They were put to many uses: farmsteads, ceremonial spaces, burial grounds, or simply stock enclosures. The outer boundary at Kilbrack is the more substantial of the two, built from an earth and stone bank roughly five metres wide, standing about 0.7 metres on the interior face and 1.6 metres on the exterior. Beyond it runs a U-shaped fosse, a ditch cut to define and defend the perimeter, surviving to a depth of around 0.8 metres and measuring between five and seven metres across the top. For much of the circuit, however, the boundary softens into a slight scarp, a low step in the ground only about 0.3 metres high, suggesting either that the original construction was uneven or that parts have weathered considerably over time. A shallow dip in the outer scarp to the north-east may mark where an entrance once stood, though nothing more definite than that can now be read from the ground.

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Pete F
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