Enclosure, Adamstown, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Enclosures
At first glance, a patch of overgrown pasture on the western edge of the Adamstown townland boundary in County Limerick looks like nothing more than an untidy corner of a field.
Look more closely, though, and the outline of a rectangular enclosure begins to resolve itself from the vegetation, a quietly legible remnant of a working rural landscape that has been largely forgotten above ground.
The enclosure was recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1840, which shows a rectangular field containing a building. It resurfaced as a named site, designated No. 040110, when aerial photographs taken on 3 November 1984 as part of a Bórd Gáis Éireann gas pipeline survey were examined; that kind of low-level aerial survey is particularly good at picking out subtle ground features invisible to someone standing in the field itself. Researchers have since confirmed it is still visible on Google Earth imagery dated 14 September 2020, appearing as an overgrown rectangular shape sitting just west of the townland boundary with Stephenstown. Compiled by Martin Fitzpatrick and uploaded in June 2021, the record is careful to note that this is not an antiquity in the archaeological sense. It is most likely the remains of a haggard, the small enclosed yard adjacent to a farmhouse where hay, straw, and sometimes livestock were kept, a feature once common across rural Ireland but frequently erased as farms were consolidated and buildings fell out of use.
The site sits in present-day pasture, so access would depend on landowner permission. There is no visitor infrastructure, and the enclosure is not marked on modern signage. Those with an interest in landscape history and a copy of the 1840 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, freely available through the OSi historical mapping viewer, will get the most from a visit, since the outline makes most sense when read against that earlier cartography. The overgrown rectangular boundary is the main thing to look for; it is subtle rather than dramatic, the kind of feature that rewards patience and a slow walk around the perimeter.