Enclosure, Glandart, Co. Cork

Co. Cork |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Glandart, Co. Cork

On a south-west-facing slope in Glandart, a rough circle of limestone slabs and boulders sits quietly in pasture, measuring just under twelve metres across.

What makes it slightly disorienting is the way it has been half-absorbed by a modern field wall on its eastern side, so that the boundary between ancient structure and workaday farmland is genuinely blurred. The enclosure itself, a type of roughly circular monument defined by upright or large set stones, is a familiar enough feature of the Cork landscape, but this one carries a particular quality of suspension, as though the landscape changed its mind partway through erasing it.

The circuit is formed by large limestone slabs and boulders standing up to a metre in height, enclosing a level interior. Several orthostats, meaning upright standing stones, have since fallen and now lie recumbent against the inner face of the walling at the north-east and north-west. Field boundaries that once radiated outward from the enclosure in four directions, to the north, south-south-east, south-south-west, and west, have all been removed at some point, leaving the structure without its original agricultural or territorial context. What those boundaries once organised, whether livestock management, land division, or something older and less legible, is no longer recoverable from the ground alone. What remains is the circle itself, slightly lopsided in its east-west and north-south measurements, and absorbed on one side into the living fabric of a working farm.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Enclosure, Glandart, Co. Cork. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement