Enclosure, Ardfinnan, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Ardfinnan, Co. Tipperary

On a south-facing hillside outside Ardfinnan in County Tipperary, a circular enclosure sits largely unacknowledged, absent from the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps that catalogued so much of Ireland's landscape during the nineteenth century.

Its existence only came to light through aerial photography, specifically a flight on 13 July 1966, when the crop and soil patterns visible from above betrayed what ground-level survey had missed entirely.

The enclosure measures roughly 45 metres in diameter along its northwest to southeast axis. An enclosure of this kind is typically defined by an earthen bank or, as here, a scarp, which is essentially a slope or step cut into the ground rather than a built-up wall, marking the boundary of what was once a enclosed space, possibly a farmstead or a settlement of early medieval date. The surviving scarp rises about 1.07 metres over a horizontal distance of 5 metres, which is modest but still legible in the landscape. The southwestern portion has been partially levelled and is difficult to make out, and the northwestern quadrant presents its own complication: the edge of the scarp merges with the line of a disused roadway or hollow, blurring the original boundary. Despite this, much of the circuit can still be traced. A separate hilltop enclosure is visible roughly 220 metres to the southeast, and a medieval church lies to the southwest, suggesting this stretch of hillside carries a layered history of occupation extending across several centuries.

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