Enclosure, Deerpark, Co. Kilkenny
Co. Kilkenny |
Enclosures
Beneath a tilled field in Deerpark, Co. Kilkenny, an entire enclosed settlement lies invisible to anyone walking across it.
There is nothing to see at ground level, no earthwork, no ridge, no obvious sign of human occupation. The site exists, for now, almost entirely as a cropmark, a ghost written in the differential growth of crops above buried features that have been slowly compressing and draining the soil for centuries.
Aerial photography first revealed the enclosure in July 1991, and what it showed was unusually detailed. The site is roughly rectilinear in plan, measuring approximately 48 metres on its north-west to south-east axis and between 40 and 43 metres across, and it is defined by a fosse, the term for a wide, flat-bottomed ditch typically dug to mark or defend an enclosed space. The fosse has a notable indentation on its western side, which may reflect an original entrance or a later modification to the boundary. Further photography taken in July 1999 added to the picture considerably, revealing two linear fosses extending outward from the main enclosure, consistent with an organised field system attached to the settlement. Most intriguingly, a dark green cropmark visible within the enclosure suggests the presence of internal structures, possibly a souterrain. Souterrains are underground passages or chambers, usually associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, where they served for storage, refuge, or both. Their construction typically involved digging a trench, lining it with stone, and covering it over, leaving a slight but lasting signature in the soil chemistry above. Satellite imagery captured in early 2019 confirmed that these cropmark traces remain legible, the buried archaeology still faintly broadcasting its outline from beneath the ploughsoil.
