Ecclesiastical enclosure, Kilmovee, Co. Waterford
Co. Waterford |
Ecclesiastical Sites
At Kilmovee in County Waterford, a low, grass-covered earthwork sits on a gentle south-facing slope, classified as an early ecclesiastical enclosure yet quietly resisting that label. The site presents as a D-shaped area, roughly 58 metres east to west and 22 metres north to south, defined by a slight scarp between 0.2 and 0.5 metres high, with faint traces of an external fosse, a shallow ditch, running along the western, northern, and eastern sides. What was most likely once an oval enclosure, the form most commonly associated with early Irish monastic settlements, has been cut short at the south by a later east-west field bank, leaving only half the original shape visible on the ground.
The site's identity has proven difficult to settle. A mound sits towards the centre of the enclosure, which might suggest ritual or burial significance, but the surrounding archaeology complicates any straightforward reading. Testing carried out in 1998 uncovered evidence of furnaces approximately 85 metres to the north-west of the associated church, findings which point more towards industrial activity than ecclesiastical use. A further programme of testing conducted around 50 metres to the east produced nothing directly related to the site at all. Researcher Pollock, writing in 2011 and drawing on both phases of investigation, concluded that the site might not be ecclesiastical in origin at all, leaving open the question of what this enclosure actually was. The site was noted as early as 1952 by Power, suggesting it has attracted local and scholarly attention for decades without ever quite yielding a definitive answer.
