Enclosure, Cloonagleavragh Park, Co. Sligo
Co. Sligo |
Enclosures
In Cloonagleavragh Park, County Sligo, there is an enclosure that leaves no trace whatsoever at ground level.
No earthwork, no ridge, no hollow. The only evidence it ever existed is a small oval or subrectangular outline inked onto a map made in 1913, the kind of modest cartographic annotation that raises more questions than it answers.
The Ordnance Survey's six-inch mapping, produced across Ireland from the 1830s onwards, is among the most detailed and systematically gathered topographical records the country possesses, and the contrast between its two editions here is telling. On the 1837 edition, the area where the enclosure would later be marked shows nothing distinct; the feature is simply absorbed into what was then a large tree plantation, indistinguishable from the surrounding woodland. By the time the 1913 edition was drawn, however, the enclosure had been noted as a separate, defined shape. The most plausible reading of this sequence is that the enclosure was constructed after the plantation was cleared, making it a relatively modern feature rather than something of ancient origin. Enclosures of this kind, oval or subrectangular in plan, can range from prehistoric field boundaries and early medieval farmsteads to nineteenth-century garden features or animal pens, and without visible remains or accompanying documentation, it is impossible to say with any confidence which category this belonged to.