Enclosure, Doonnagurroge, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Enclosures
In the townland of Doonnagurroge, in County Clare, there sits an enclosure that has been recorded, catalogued, and assigned a monument number, yet whose details remain almost entirely obscure.
It appears on maps, it exists in the archaeological record, but the specifics of what it is, how old it might be, and what purpose it once served have not yet been made publicly available.
An enclosure, in the broadest archaeological sense, is exactly what it sounds like: a defined area set apart from its surroundings by a bank, ditch, wall, or some combination of these. In an Irish context, enclosures span an enormous range of types and periods, from prehistoric ceremonial sites to the circular ringforts that were built as defended farmsteads from the early medieval period onward, through to later field boundaries and ecclesiastical enclosures. County Clare is exceptionally rich in such monuments, its limestone landscape having preserved earthworks that elsewhere were long since ploughed away or built over. Doonnagurroge itself is a small rural townland, and the enclosure it contains sits quietly within that landscape, its character and history as yet unannounced to the wider world.