Enclosure, Ballynisky, Co. Limerick

Co. Limerick |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Ballynisky, Co. Limerick

Somewhere in County Limerick a working farm has quietly swallowed a piece of much older archaeology, and the result is one of those accidental collisions between the ancient and the mundane that the Irish countryside occasionally throws up.

At Ballynisky, a roughly rectangular enclosure sits on a north-facing slope, its earth and stone bank still legible in places, yet partially demolished, overgrown, and in one stretch simply replaced by a poured-concrete silage pit. The enclosure is the kind of feature that reads clearly on a survey plan but demands some patience from anyone trying to trace it on the ground.

The site was recorded by Denis Power and uploaded to the national record in August 2011. The enclosure measures approximately 20.8 metres north to south and 36 metres east to west, making it a modest but coherent space. Its bank, built from earth and stone, survives to a height of around 0.9 metres on both its inner and outer faces, and is best preserved along the western side. Enclosures of this general type, defined by a raised bank and sometimes an accompanying ditch, were used across early medieval Ireland as farmsteads, animal enclosures, or settlement boundaries, though without excavation it is rarely possible to say more about function or date. At Ballynisky, the northern bank has been absorbed into a modern field boundary and is now masked by dense vegetation, while the eastern enclosing element has been removed altogether. Recent gaps of roughly three metres have been cut through both the north-west and south-west corners, presumably to allow farm traffic to pass. A farm passage running north to south enters the eastern yard area at the north-east, and two small concrete yards now adjoin the silage pit on either side.

The site sits in pasture, so access would depend entirely on the landowner's permission, and there is no formal public access recorded. For anyone with that permission, the western bank is the most rewarding section to examine, as it retains the clearest sense of the original enclosure's profile. The dense vegetation along the northern boundary makes that stretch difficult to read, and the concrete infrastructure at the centre of the site is visually dominant. What rewards attention here is less any dramatic survival than the way the enclosure's geometry can still be pieced together from fragments, a western bank here, a field boundary there, a concrete wall that happens to follow the line of something much older.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Enclosure, Ballynisky, Co. Limerick. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement