Enclosure, Ballysallagh, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Enclosures
In a level field at Ballysallagh in County Limerick, the ground holds the faint memory of an enclosure that is, by any measure, barely there.
What survives is a semi-circular scarp, the eroded remnant of what was once a bank, running from east-north-east around through south to west-north-west. At its widest the bank traces are only two metres across and stand no more than thirty-five centimetres above the surrounding pasture. It is the kind of feature that rewards attention precisely because it demands it.
Enclosures of this general type, ringforts or their variants, were once among the most common field monuments in Ireland, used from the early medieval period onwards as farmsteads, animal enclosures, or places of habitation. Whether this particular example belongs to that tradition is not recorded in the available survey notes, compiled by Denis Power and uploaded to the record in November 2013. What the record does confirm is that the structure originally formed a roughly oval or circular plan, measuring approximately twelve metres north to south and fourteen metres east to west, with a wider enclosing element visible on the current Ordnance Survey six-inch map. A farm access road has cut through the northern arc, removing that section entirely and leaving the surviving scarp as only the southern half of what once would have been a complete circuit.
For anyone inclined to seek it out, the site sits in ordinary working farmland, and the feature itself is subtle enough that it could easily be walked past without recognition. The OS six-inch mapping is the most reliable guide to its position, showing the semi-circular outline and the point where the trackway interrupts it. Ground level inspection is best done in low light or when vegetation is short, conditions under which slight changes in relief become more legible. There is no formal access, and the land is agricultural, so the usual courtesies apply. The enclosure is not dramatic, but the fact that it endures at all, reduced to a few centimetres of height across a modest arc of Limerick pasture, is itself worth noting.