Earthwork, Knocklong West, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ritual/Ceremonial
In a field of reclaimed pasture in County Limerick, there is an earthwork that does not appear on any Ordnance Survey historic map.
It was not formally recorded until an aircraft passed overhead in 1986 and a surveyor noticed something in the grass. That something turned out to be a D-shaped raised platform, defined by a low scarp and a fosse, the fosse being the shallow ditch that typically runs alongside or around an enclosure of this kind. The monument carries the reference LI040-084---- in the national record, but beyond that designation, relatively little is resolved about it.
The Bruff aerial photographic survey of 1986 identified the site as a possible enclosure, cataloguing it as Bruff 118, reference AP 5/2124. Aerial survey of this kind works by detecting cropmarks, the faint variations in vegetation growth that betray buried or partially buried features beneath. The D-shaped platform reads clearly enough from above, running from the north-east around through east, south, west, and north-west. At its northern edge, it is intersected by a post-1700 field boundary running east to west, a relatively modern intrusion that cuts across the older form. A separate relic field boundary running north to south, visible on the 1840 edition of the six-inch Ordnance Survey map, can still be picked out on more recent satellite imagery, including a Digital Globe orthoimage taken between 2011 and 2013 and a Google Earth image dated 14 September 2019. The earthwork sits approximately 75 metres to the south-west of a reference point in the same townland.
The site lies in working farmland, so access would depend on the goodwill of the landowner and the usual courtesies that apply to visiting monuments in private fields. On the ground, the raised platform and scarp may be subtle, particularly where vegetation is high or where grazing has levelled the surface over time. The clearest impression of the shape is arguably still from above, via satellite imagery, where the cropmark evidence and the relationship between the old and newer field boundaries remain legible. Those with an interest in aerial archaeology or enclosure monuments will find the Bruff survey record a useful point of comparison.