Enclosure, Ballymore, Co. Galway

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Ballymore, Co. Galway

At Ballymore in County Galway, there is a structure that exists now almost entirely on paper.

A small enclosure, measuring roughly six metres by three and a half, was once defined by walls of single boulders set upright on their edges, a simple but deliberate arrangement that would have marked out a specific, bounded space within the wider landscape. Today, no visible trace of it survives at ground level.

The enclosure was one of two recorded by McCaffrey in 1952, both associated with a nearby rectangular stone fort, the kind of drystone enclosure that was a common feature of early Irish settlement and land use. McCaffrey catalogued this particular example, annotated in the record as 'D', at pages 178 to 179 of his survey, noting its paired relationship with a second enclosure nearby. The walls, composed of single lines of boulders set on edge rather than built up in courses, suggest a relatively modest construction, perhaps a small yard or animal pen attached to the fort rather than a defensive or residential structure in its own right. What function it served precisely is not recorded, and the absence of any surface remains makes it impossible to say more from the ground alone.

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