Enclosure, Dromore By.), Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Enclosures
On a north-east-facing slope in West Cork, a subtly raised patch of pasture holds rather more than it initially appears.
The ground rises in a sub-circular shape, roughly fifteen metres north to south and nineteen metres east to west, its southern and western edges now absorbed into ordinary field fencing, its northern and eastern sides defined by a scarp about a metre high. To a passing eye it reads as a mild irregularity in the land. To an archaeologist it reads as an enclosure, and one with considerable company inside.
Within this modest raised area lie two further features: a burial ground and what may be a souterrain. A souterrain is an underground passage or chamber, typically stone-lined, associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland and thought to have served for storage, refuge, or both. Their presence alongside a burial ground inside an enclosure of this kind suggests a site with a long and layered history of use, probably stretching back into the early medieval period. The enclosure itself, defined by its scarp rather than any surviving bank or wall, is the kind of feature that can be easily overlooked, particularly once later field boundaries have been built across or along it, as has happened here on the southern and western sides.