Enclosure, Bottomstown, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Enclosures
Two circular earthworks sit in a low-lying marshy field at Bottomstown in County Limerick, separated by only twenty metres and arranged almost precisely on a north-south axis.
What makes them quietly puzzling is not their size, though the larger of the two stretches thirty-six metres in overall diameter, but the fact that they occupy a platform of raised ground within the surrounding wetland, a platform that may be partly man-made. Both enclosures are ringed by a fosse, the term for the shallow ditch that typically accompanies earthwork monuments of this kind, and yet neither shows any recognisable entrance. They simply sit there, self-contained and unreadable, the larger to the north and the smaller, at twenty-seven metres across, due south of it.
The monuments were recorded and described by O'Kelly in 1944, who noted that the platform on which they stand is cut off from its eastern portion by what he called an ancient fence line, suggesting the site had some kind of internal organisation or boundary that predates modern land use. The northern enclosure rises about 0.9 metres above the surrounding ground. Whether these are the remains of a ringfort, a class of enclosed farmstead common throughout early medieval Ireland, or something older or with a different function, the records do not say with certainty. The pairing of two enclosures in such close proximity and with such consistent form is unusual and has attracted enough attention to warrant aerial survey; photographs were taken by the Archaeological Survey of Ireland in January 2003 under reference ASIAP 347/12.
The site sits within agricultural land and is most legible from above, which is why the aerial record has become its primary document. Visiting at ground level, especially in wetter months, means negotiating the marshy surrounds that O'Kelly himself flagged as a defining characteristic of the location. The raised platform would be the thing to look for, the slight but distinct elevation that lifts both monuments above the boggy field around them. Ordinance Survey maps and the National Monuments Service record under LI040-021 can help with orientation before a visit.