Enclosure, Kilgarriff, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Enclosures
In the rock outcrop and scrubland of Kilgarriff, a circular enclosure exists mainly on paper.
The first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map records it clearly enough, a roughly circular form some twenty-five metres across, the kind of measurement that suggests a deliberate, enclosed space rather than a casual arrangement of stone. On the ground today, the picture is considerably less clear.
All that remains visible is a single arc of drystone wall on the eastern side, running about six metres in length and a metre wide. Drystone construction, which uses no mortar and relies entirely on the careful fitting of stones, was the standard technique for enclosures of this type across the west of Ireland for centuries, and the wall fragment is consistent with a field enclosure, a farmstead boundary, or possibly something older and less easily categorised. The rest of the original circuit has disappeared beneath dense overgrowth, leaving the monument as more of an inference than an observable structure.