Enclosure, Boardee, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Enclosures
In a tillage field on an east-facing slope in Boardee, County Cork, there is almost nothing to see, and that is precisely what makes it interesting.
A roughly semicircular area, approximately 53 metres in diameter, betrays itself only through a change in the colour of the soil. Where the rest of the field is dark brown, a band of lighter, stony earth about four metres wide curves from the north-northwest to the south, tracing what was once the perimeter of an enclosure. A slight rise along the northeastern to southeastern edge may be the last remnant of a levelled bank, the kind that would once have defined the boundary clearly above ground. On the southern arc, even that faint topographic hint disappears entirely, leaving only the pale soil as evidence.
Enclosures of this general type, circular or roughly circular boundaries enclosing a domestic or agricultural area, are among the most common archaeological features in the Irish landscape, though most have been reduced over centuries of ploughing to exactly this condition: a ghostly outline readable mainly from the air or through the contrast of disturbed subsoil. The fact that this one survives as a cropmark or soil mark in active tillage land suggests that the bank was demolished at some point, its material spread or removed, leaving the filled-in foundation material to differ just enough from the surrounding earth to remain visible. What originally stood here, and when, is not recorded; the enclosure has not been dated, and no finds or associated features are noted.
