Enclosure, Carriganimmy, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Enclosures
On a peaty terrace on the south-east-facing slopes of a ridge running south-west from Musherabeg, in the rough hill grazing of Carriganimmy, a semicircular stone wall breaks the surface of the bog like the partial outline of something much larger.
The wall, around 0.8 metres thick and just 0.3 metres high where it is visible, traces a curve from north-north-west to south-south-east and appears to form part of a circular enclosure roughly 65 metres in diameter. What makes the site quietly peculiar is not the wall itself but what it seems to have been drawn around: a stone circle, a standing stone, and at least one hut site are all contained within its arc, suggesting that whoever built the enclosure was deliberately incorporating, or perhaps protecting, an assemblage of much older monuments.
The section of wall running south-south-east to north-north-west has left no visible trace, likely because the ground there is uneven and broken by low outcrops of rock, which may have made construction impractical or simply allowed the stonework to collapse and disappear into the bog over time. A second hut site abuts the inner face of the enclosure wall at its south-eastern side. Hut sites of this kind are typically the collapsed remains of small circular or oval stone-walled dwellings, and their presence alongside ceremonial or ritual features, such as a stone circle and a standing stone, raises questions about whether this place was used for habitation, for ritual, or for both at different periods. The partial nature of the surviving wall means the enclosure cannot be confirmed with certainty, but the alignment of elements within it gives the site a coherence that is hard to dismiss as coincidence.