Enclosure, Aghnahoo, Co. Leitrim

Co. Leitrim |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Aghnahoo, Co. Leitrim

On a high plateau in County Leitrim, an east-facing slope of rough pasture conceals a small rectangular enclosure that has, so far, refused to give up one of its most basic secrets: nobody has been able to identify where its original entrance was.

The enclosure itself is modest, measuring roughly ten and a half metres north to south and just under ten metres east to west, defined by a drystone wall that has long since collapsed. Drystone construction, built without mortar by carefully fitting stones together, was widely used across Ireland for field boundaries, enclosures, and shelters across many centuries, and its absence of identifying features here makes dating and interpretation genuinely difficult.

Tucked into the south-west angle of the enclosure is a small hut-site, also defined by collapsed drystone walling, with an interior measuring just 1.3 metres by 1.2 metres, barely large enough to shelter a single person or perhaps a small animal. The original enclosure wall, where it can still be read, would have stood around 1.1 metres high and was approximately 0.7 metres wide, which suggests something more substantial than a casual field boundary. Whether the enclosure was used for livestock, as a sheltered working space, or for some other purpose entirely, the physical evidence alone cannot settle the question. The missing entrance is a particular puzzle: enclosures of this kind typically preserve at least a narrowing or a gap in the walling that marks where people or animals moved in and out, but here the collapsed state of the walls has obscured any such feature beyond recognition.

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Pete F
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