Enclosure, Clomantagh, Co. Kilkenny
Co. Kilkenny |
Enclosures
Near Clomantagh in County Kilkenny, a pair of ancient enclosures lies invisible at ground level, detectable only from the air, where the soil betrays what centuries have buried.
The inner enclosure, roughly 36 metres in diameter, shows up as a cropmark, the kind of ghostly outline that appears in dry summers when crops growing over buried ditches ripen at a different rate to those on either side. What makes the site particularly curious is its double structure: the inner circle sits within a larger, curvilinear enclosure measuring approximately 90 metres east to west and 80 metres north to south, which narrows noticeably as it reaches the eastern end, tapering to between 35 and 40 metres across.
Both enclosures share certain features. Each is defined by a fosse, a term for a ditch or trench cut into the earth, typically used to demarcate, defend, or ritually bound a space, and each has an entrance facing south. That repeated southward orientation is unlikely to be coincidental; south-facing entrances are a recurring characteristic of early Irish enclosed settlements and ritual sites, though whether this particular example served a domestic, agricultural, or ceremonial function remains unresolved. The cropmark evidence was captured in aerial photographs taken in July 1990 and again in August 1996, and it is through those images alone that the site's geometry has been reconstructed. Nothing at the surface would suggest it is there at all.