Enclosure, Srahyconigaun, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Enclosures
In the pasture and bogland of Srahyconigaun, beneath an unremarkable stretch of level ground, something has effectively vanished twice.
First, whatever enclosure once stood here disappeared from the landscape itself, leaving no visible trace at ground level. Then, between one Ordnance Survey map and the next, even its cartographic ghost began to fade. What makes this site quietly arresting is precisely that combination: a feature which apparently existed in some form, was recorded, and is now gone in every practical sense.
The 1838 six-inch OS map makes no mention of anything here. By the 1922 edition, however, a hachured arc appears, curving from northwest to northeast across the southern corner of a rectangular field, measuring roughly 20 metres in length. Hachuring on early OS maps typically indicated an earthen bank or raised feature, and this particular arc was interpreted as the northern portion of what may have been a circular enclosure, a class of monument found widely across Ireland and associated with a broad range of periods and functions, from prehistoric settlements to early medieval farmsteads. A small farmstead was recorded immediately to the east of the feature. Since that mapping, the adjacent field boundaries and the buildings have both been removed, and nothing now distinguishes the spot from the surrounding pasture. The enclosure's possible partner in antiquity, a megalithic tomb, lies approximately 75 metres to the south-southeast, just far enough away to feel like a separate matter, though the proximity is difficult to dismiss entirely. Nephin Mountain rises on the horizon to the southeast, the one fixed landmark in a landscape where nearly everything else has been quietly erased.