Enclosure, Collinstown, Co. Dublin

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Collinstown, Co. Dublin

Somewhere beneath a working arable field on a north-facing slope outside Collinstown, a circular enclosure roughly 45 metres across lies completely invisible to anyone standing on the ground.

The only reason we know it exists at all is a single aerial photograph taken in 1972, reference FSI 427/6, which captured a cropmark, the faint ghostly outline that buried archaeology leaves on growing crops in dry conditions, revealing what appears to be a univallate enclosure, meaning one defined by a single ditch or bank, with possible field boundaries trailing away from it. It is the kind of discovery that reminds you how much of the Irish landscape is essentially a palimpsest, with earlier structures written faintly beneath the surface of the ordinary and the agricultural.

The site came under closer scrutiny when a house construction was proposed in the same field. An archaeological assessment, logged under reference 11E0431, confirmed the presence of the enclosure and also identified a figure-of-eight kiln measuring approximately 2.4 metres in length. A figure-of-eight kiln is exactly what it sounds like in plan, two connected chambers forming a double-lobed shape, a design associated with various drying or firing functions in early Irish contexts, including grain drying. That kiln was subsequently excavated and the results published by Mullins and Dunne in 2012. The enclosure itself, its date and original function, remains less clearly resolved, though circular enclosures of this type in Ireland are frequently associated with early medieval settlement or ecclesiastical activity.

There is nothing to see here in the conventional sense. The field sits on a gentle slope with open views southward toward Lusk, and the ground gives no indication of what lies beneath it. The value of a visit, if one can even call it that, is more conceptual than visual: this is a place that exists primarily in archive photographs, assessment reports, and published excavation notes rather than in any form a casual observer could read from the surface. Those interested in pursuing the detail further would do best to start with the archaeological assessment reference or the Mullins and Dunne 2012 publication, both of which sit behind the visible landscape here rather than in front of it.

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