Embanked enclosure, Drumcleavry, Co. Roscommon

Co. Roscommon |

Ringforts

Embanked enclosure, Drumcleavry, Co. Roscommon

On the western bank of the River Shannon in County Roscommon, a low earthen enclosure sits so quietly in the landscape that it is easy to mistake it for a natural rise in the ground.

The enclosure is D-shaped, roughly 33 metres north to south and just over 21 metres east to west, defined on its southern and south-western arc by an earthen bank about three metres wide. The bank stands only 0.2 metres above the interior ground level, though it reaches 0.7 metres on the outside, suggesting the interior may have been raised or that the surrounding ground has settled over a long period. To the north and west, the boundary becomes a scarp, a natural or cut slope rather than a built-up bank, dropping between 0.3 and 0.7 metres. There is no visible fosse, the term for the ditch that typically accompanies an earthen enclosure and provides the material for its bank, and no identifiable entrance survives.

What makes the site particularly hard to read is the damage done to its eastern side. A spoil mound, some nine metres wide and up to 1.2 metres high, was deposited along the river-facing edge as a consequence of drainage works on the Shannon. That mound has since been planted with mature deciduous trees, so the enclosure's relationship with the river, which runs immediately to the east, is now obscured by both the earthworks and the canopy above them. The original function of the enclosure is not recorded. Embanked enclosures of this kind in Ireland are associated with a wide range of periods and uses, from early medieval settlement and cattle management to later land division, and without excavation or further survey this one keeps its purpose to itself.

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Pete F
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