Enclosure, Cloranshea, Co. Kilkenny
Co. Kilkenny |
Enclosures
In a field in Cloranshea, County Kilkenny, most of an ancient enclosure has quietly vanished into the ground, leaving only two opposing arcs of earthwork to suggest the full oval that once existed here.
The site is unusual precisely because of this incompleteness: enough survives to read the original shape, but just barely, and what remains rewards close attention rather than a glance from the gate.
The enclosure was oval in plan, measuring roughly 77 metres on its northwest to southeast axis and about 36 metres across. It sits on a gentle southwest-facing slope that runs down towards a small river valley, set in rough, fairly level grassland with open views in most directions. The northern arc, about 36 metres long, is the better preserved of the two, consisting of a low bank roughly a metre high and three metres wide. Some 27 metres to the south, the opposite arc survives in more complex form: an inner bank worn down to a scarp, then a berm or filled-in fosse (a fosse being a defensive ditch, here apparently silted and levelled over time), and finally a low outer bank that stands between one and one and a half metres high on its exterior face. An old field boundary running roughly east to west has cut across the northern part of this southern section, further complicating the picture. Enclosures of this type are broadly associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, often serving as the boundaries of a farmstead or ringfort, though without excavation the precise date and function of this one remain open questions.