Enclosure, Clonard, Co. Dublin
Co. Dublin |
Enclosures
Most ancient monuments announce themselves in some way, a standing stone, a mound, a ruined wall.
This one does not. The circular enclosure at Clonard, on the southern fringes of County Dublin, is visible only from the air, appearing as a crop mark, the kind of ghostly outline that shows up in aerial photographs when buried ditches or banks cause the vegetation above them to grow at a slightly different rate to the surrounding soil. Crop marks, in other words, are not features you can walk up to and touch; they are traces left by what was once there, readable only at altitude and usually only in dry summers when soil moisture differences are most pronounced. Alongside the enclosure, other faint marks suggest the possible remains of a field system, though their full extent and relationship to the enclosure itself remain uncertain.