Enclosure, Bunnyconnellan, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Enclosures
Between the first and second Ordnance Survey of Ireland, a small oval enclosure in north Mayo either came into existence or simply went unrecorded.
The 1837 to 1838 six-inch map shows nothing at this spot near Bunnyconnellan; by the 1922 edition, it is there. That gap of roughly eighty years is, for now, unexplained.
The enclosure sits on a narrow terrace at the north-eastern end of a steep-sided glen running north to south, with a pool and boggy ground visible to the west at the glen's base. It is oval in plan, measuring approximately twenty metres along its longer axis and thirteen and a half metres across, which makes it a modest but deliberate structure. The boundary is not uniform: the south-eastern half survives as a low stony bank or wall, roughly eighty centimetres wide and about forty centimetres high on the exterior face, while the north-north-western side takes a different form entirely, presenting as an almost vertical scarp about forty-five centimetres high, faced with stones. An enclosure of this kind, defined by a combination of built bank and shaped scarp, could have served any number of purposes, from livestock management to something with a less immediately practical character, though the notes offer no firm indication either way. The interior slopes down toward the north-west and west, following the natural lie of the terrace. Dense overgrowth made a full inspection difficult, leaving parts of the structure unclear.