Earthwork, Glenlary, Co. Limerick

Co. Limerick |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Earthwork, Glenlary, Co. Limerick

A low, tree-covered platform rising from otherwise ordinary pasture in County Limerick is easy to mistake for a natural feature of the land, a slight swelling in the ground that the eye might pass over without pause.

But the geometry gives it away. Roughly 32 metres across on its north-west to south-east axis and 29 metres on the north-east to south-west, this sub-circular earthwork sits in a field in the townland of Glenlary, about 160 metres east of the Glenlary Stream and just over 200 metres west of the boundary with the neighbouring townland of Cloghast. A second enclosure lies around 200 metres to the south-west, suggesting this part of the landscape was once rather busier than it appears today.

The earthwork appears on the 1840 edition of the Ordnance Survey Ireland six-inch map as a raised, roughly circular area defined by a scarp, which is essentially a steep face or slope marking the edge of the platform. By the time the more detailed 25-inch map was produced in 1897, surveyors recorded not just the platform but a fosse, a ditch running around the northern, eastern, southern, and south-western sides. A fosse of this kind would typically have served as both a boundary marker and a means of emphasising the raised character of whatever structure or space it enclosed. Complicating the picture slightly, a field boundary running east to west cuts across the northern side of the monument, and this boundary is considered post-1700, meaning it is a comparatively recent intrusion into an older landscape feature. Who built the original earthwork, and when, is not recorded in the available survey notes.

The monument is currently tree-covered, which made it clearly visible on Digital Globe and Google Earth orthoimages taken between 2011 and 2013, the canopy standing out against the surrounding pasture even from above. For anyone approaching on the ground, that cluster of trees in an otherwise open field is the practical thing to look for. There is no formal access or visitor infrastructure noted for this site, so any visit would require navigating privately held farmland, and the usual courtesies of seeking permission from landowners apply. The earthwork was compiled into the national record by Fiona Rooney, with details uploaded in October 2021, which means it has only recently received formal documentation despite having been mapped, in outline at least, for well over a century.

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Pete F
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