Enclosure, Kildonan, Co. Dublin

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Kildonan, Co. Dublin

A modest rectangle of disturbed earth in Kildonan, County Dublin, would almost certainly have gone unrecorded were it not for the proposed route of the Metro West rail project, which triggered a wave of archaeological investigation along its corridor.

What the ground concealed was a sub-rectangular enclosure measuring roughly 35 metres by 25 metres, the kind of enclosed settlement or farmstead that once formed the basic unit of rural life across early medieval Ireland, invisible to the naked eye but legible to the instruments used in geophysical survey.

The site came to light through a geophysical survey conducted under Licence no. 09R195, and the results were subsequently confirmed by test excavation carried out under Licence no. 10E0462. Archaeologists found a ditch measuring 0.55 metres wide and 0.25 metres deep, and on either side of it they identified two postholes, which O'Donovan, reporting in 2010, interpreted as suggesting the former presence of a palisade, that is, a timber fence or stake wall that would have defined and defended the enclosure's boundary. At the southern end of the enclosure, two corn-drying kilns were also recorded, designated DU014-122002 and DU014-122003 in the national monuments register. A corn-drying kiln, typically a small stone-lined or clay-lined flue structure, was used to dry harvested grain before milling or storage, and their presence here points to a working agricultural settlement rather than anything purely ceremonial or defensive. The combination of a palisaded boundary and on-site food processing infrastructure gives the site a quietly domestic character.

The enclosure is not a visitor attraction in any formal sense, and there is nothing visible above ground today. Its significance lies almost entirely in what the survey records and excavation archive preserve. Those with a particular interest in the archaeology of the Metro West development corridor may find the O'Donovan 2010 report the most useful point of entry, as it sets this site within the broader pattern of monuments identified along the route. The site record was compiled by Christine Baker and uploaded to the national database in February 2015.

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