Concentric enclosure, Ballyherberry, Co. Tipperary

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Enclosures

Concentric enclosure, Ballyherberry, Co. Tipperary

On the south-eastern edge of a hilltop in County Tipperary, a pair of concentric earthen rings sit quietly overgrown, their purpose unannounced and their entrance, if there ever was a clear one, long since swallowed by brambles and furze.

What makes the site quietly arresting is its layered geometry: a substantial inner enclosure wrapped inside a wide flat terrace, itself enclosed by a second, lower bank, the whole arrangement suggesting deliberate design rather than the accumulated accident of a working farm.

The inner enclosure measures roughly 34 metres across on its north-west to south-east axis. It is defined by a bank whose base spreads to nearly five metres and which rises almost two metres on its outer face, with a fosse, essentially a cut ditch, running just outside it to a depth of around 1.2 metres. Beyond this, a broad level platform extends outward by as much as 40 metres before meeting a second, more modest bank and a shallower fosse. Both circuits appear on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, the inner one clearly marked with hachures, the outer recorded as a continuous, slightly irregular field boundary. A gap in the southern portion of the inner bank, with a slight causeway over a widened section of the fosse, might at first suggest an original entrance, but the evidence points instead to a later field boundary running north to south, constructed of earth with drystone facing, that cuts across and curves around the eastern side of the monument. This intrusion, relatively recent in archaeological terms, has partly reshaped the southern quadrant and complicates any reading of the original layout.

The hilltop position offers panoramic views to the east, south, and west, though the slope rising to the north blocks that quarter. Recently planted forestry to the west and north-west of the outer enclosure is beginning to press in on the site, and the ground itself is wet and heavily overgrown except in the northern quadrant, where the earthworks are most legible. Visitors approaching through the scrub should expect the monument to reveal itself slowly, its banks and ditches emerging from the vegetation rather than presenting themselves clearly at a distance.

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Pete F
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