Enclosure, Curraghmore, Co. Waterford

Co. Waterford |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Curraghmore, Co. Waterford

On a northeast-southwest spur of the foothills southwest of Tower Hill in County Waterford, a circular grass-covered area sits quietly in the landscape, defined by nothing more dramatic than a low scarp, between 0.4 and 0.7 metres high, tracing a ring roughly 39 metres across. There is no visible fosse, the term for the ditch that typically accompanies an earthen enclosure, and no discernible entrance. A road running on a north-northwest to south-southeast axis clips the northeastern edge, cutting across the circle and leaving it slightly truncated, as though the modern world simply drew a line through it without ceremony.

Enclosures of this kind are among the more quietly puzzling features of the Irish archaeological landscape. Without a fosse or an obvious gateway, they resist easy classification. Some such earthworks are the remains of early medieval settlement enclosures, others may have had ceremonial or agricultural functions, and the absence of defining features often means their precise purpose and date remain open questions. What can be said of this one is that it does not stand alone: a second enclosure lies approximately 100 metres to the south, which raises the possibility that the two were related in use or construction, though the nature of that relationship is not recorded.

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