Enclosure, Ardline, Co. Sligo

The 1914 Ordnance Survey six-inch map records a curving arc of hachured bank, the cartographers' shorthand for an earthen ridge, running roughly south to north-north-west across the hilltop for around thirty metres. Stand on the same ground today and there is nothing to see.

What makes the site quietly interesting is its situation. Drumlins, the smooth oval hills formed from glacial debris deposited by retreating ice sheets, were often favoured locations for early settlement and enclosure in Ireland, offering drainage and visibility across low-lying ground. The enclosure at Ardline sits on just such a summit, and within about fifteen metres to its east lies a rath, a ringfort, which would have been a defended farmstead in early medieval Ireland. The proximity of the two features suggests this corner of Sligo supported more organised human activity than the empty pasture now implies. Whether the enclosure is contemporary with the rath, earlier, or later, the available record does not say.