Enclosure, Ballyshonickbane, Co. Limerick

Co. Limerick |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Ballyshonickbane, Co. Limerick

Somewhere in the rough pasture of Ballyshonickbane, a small patch of ground grows differently from everything around it.

No wall survives, no ditch is obviously visible, and the Ordnance Survey maps show nothing at all. Yet the land itself preserves a faint circular memory, legible only when viewed from the air or through a satellite image, where a subcircular area of differential growth, roughly fifteen metres across at its longest axis, marks out something that was once deliberately enclosed.

The site came to light not through excavation or fieldwork but through an aerial photograph taken by the Archaeological Survey of Ireland in April 2006. That photograph suggested the presence of a possible enclosure on a gentle south-facing slope, sitting in undulating rough ground about twenty metres west of a local stream. A Google Earth orthoimage captured in July 2018 confirmed what the earlier photograph had hinted at: a subcircular shape, measuring approximately fifteen metres on a northeast to southwest axis and twelve metres on a northwest to southeast axis, visible as a zone of wet scrub with a growth pattern distinct from its surroundings. Enclosures of this kind, broadly circular or oval boundaries that once defined a farmstead, a burial ground, or a place of ritual activity, are among the most common archaeological features in the Irish landscape, though their date and function can rarely be determined without excavation. The fact that this one does not appear on any OS mapping suggests it has passed entirely below the threshold of recorded heritage until very recently. The record was compiled by Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly and uploaded in July 2020.

Because the site has no formal designation and no above-ground remains, there is little to see on foot. The differential vegetation growth that makes it legible from above would be far less obvious at ground level, particularly outside the growing season when contrasts in plant vigour tend to flatten out. The surrounding terrain is described as rough, undulating pasture, so any visit would require appropriate footwear and the usual courtesies around access to agricultural land. For those with an interest in how the Irish countryside conceals its past, the more instructive approach may simply be to examine the Google Earth orthoimage from July 2018, where the ghostly subcircular outline is considerably easier to read than anything the ground itself is likely to offer.

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