Enclosure, Ervallagh Eighter, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Enclosures
In a flat field in the townland of Ervallagh Eighter, in north Galway, there is a ring that most people would walk straight past.
It measures roughly 33 metres east to west and 32 metres north to south, making it almost perfectly circular, and its only visible feature is a low scarp, a slight drop in ground level, of no more than 30 centimetres. That modest earthwork is all that now separates this site from the surrounding grassland.
Enclosures of this kind are among the more quietly puzzling features of the Irish landscape. Circular earthen enclosures, sometimes called raths or ring-forts depending on their construction and context, were built across Ireland from the early medieval period onwards, typically as enclosed farmsteads or places of habitation. A scarp rather than a built bank suggests that this one may be particularly worn, or that it was never especially substantial to begin with. The dimensions, just over 30 metres across, sit comfortably within the range typical for single-family agricultural settlements, though without excavation it is difficult to say more with confidence. What the archaeological record confirms is simply its shape, its scale, and the fact that it is in very poor condition.