Enclosure, Ardmoran, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Enclosures
In a pasture at Ardmoran in County Mayo, a D-shaped enclosure sits quietly on a gentle south-east-facing slope, its earthen and stone bank still rising to a height of 2.6 metres.
That is a substantial wall by any measure, and the fact that it has survived largely intact in agricultural land makes it quietly remarkable. A gap six metres wide in the south-east side marks what was almost certainly an original entrance, oriented, as with many such enclosures across Ireland, towards the rising sun.
Enclosures of this kind, sometimes called ring forts or raths depending on their construction and date, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically serving as enclosed farmsteads for a family and their livestock. This one measures roughly 33 metres east to west, which places it within the middle range of such sites. What adds a small puzzle to the picture is the external linear bank running parallel to the southern side of the enclosure, 18 metres long and 0.6 metres high. Such an outwork is not unusual in itself, but its presence suggests the site may have had a more complex layout than a simple single-phase enclosure, perhaps indicating additional activity or a secondary phase of use. The site appears in an archaeological survey of the Ballinrobe district compiled by D. Lavelle in 1994, covering the wider area around Lough Mask and Lough Carra, a part of south Mayo with a notably dense concentration of early and prehistoric monuments.