Enclosure, Bunnamohaun, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Bunnamohaun, Co. Mayo

On the south-western tip of Clare Island, where the land runs out above a deep sea cove, a narrow hollow in the rock shelters something easy to walk past without registering: a small circular enclosure, barely twelve metres across, that sits tucked into the terrain as though it were part of the geology rather than a human imposition upon it.

The hollow itself is partly natural, its sides formed by outcrops of bare rock, with one near-vertical sheet of stone rising along the north-eastern edge. At the south-eastern end, the ground has been artificially terraced into a flat grassy platform that ends abruptly at the cliff edge. The enclosure occupies the lowest, most sheltered part of this arrangement, and the effect is of something deliberately hidden, oriented away from the open island and towards the sea.

The enclosure is defined by a broad grassy bank, subcircular in plan, that has been considerably worn down over time. Its best-preserved section, on the south-south-east, is still 4.3 metres wide and about half a metre high, though few stones break through its turf surface. A slight depression in the bank's height on the southern side, accompanied by two small well-set stones set roughly 0.9 metres apart, may indicate where an entrance once stood. The interior is notably dished, meaning it dips inward rather than sitting flat, a feature sometimes associated with prolonged occupation and the gradual accumulation of activity at ground level. Much of the eastern half is taken up by a low, spread mass of loose stone, around 6.8 metres by 4.6 metres, with flat slabs visible within it but none arranged with any obvious intention. Two hut hollows, shallow scooped depressions that once formed the sunken floors of small dwellings, are set into the enclosing bank itself, one to the north-west and one to the south-west. This kind of arrangement, where habitation structures lean into the enclosure wall for shelter and structural support, appears in early medieval and later pastoral contexts across the west of Ireland, though the dating of this particular site remains unclear. The survey published by the Royal Irish Academy in 2007 as part of the New Survey of Clare Island provides the most detailed account of what survives.

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