Enclosure, Cathair Na Cáithe, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Enclosures
In mid Cork, a field in ordinary pasture hides a feat of deliberate earthwork that takes a moment to read correctly.
What looks at first like a gentle rise in the ground is in fact an artificially raised circular platform, roughly 55 metres across and lifted up to 1.2 metres above the surrounding slope. Sitting on top of that platform, centred on it with some precision, is a second, smaller enclosure enclosed by its own bank of earth and stone. The effect is concentric, one ring within another, the whole structure orientated on a south-facing hillside as if positioned with some care for aspect or visibility.
The place is known as Cathair Na Cáithe, a name that invokes the Irish word cathair, used for a stone fort or enclosure, the kind of ringfort built from the early medieval period onwards as a defended farmstead or seat of local authority. What makes this example unusual is the deliberate raising of the outer platform itself, the labour involved in constructing an artificial mound of that diameter before the inner enclosure was even begun. The inner enclosure measures approximately 30 metres east to west and 45 metres north to south, enclosed by a bank standing around 0.9 metres high. The interior, today damp and boggy, would once have been the working heart of the site, whatever its original purpose.