Enclosure, Garrymorris, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Enclosures
A circular enclosure roughly 36 metres across sits on a steep east-facing slope at Garrymorris in County Tipperary, and the only reason anyone knows it exists is because of a single aerial photograph taken in 1973.
Walk the ground today and there is nothing to see; the feature lies completely beneath pasture, invisible at surface level.
Aerial photography has long been one of archaeology's more reliable tools for finding sites that have been ploughed or grassed over. Variations in soil moisture and crop growth, imperceptible from the ground, can show up clearly from altitude as differences in colour or texture. The Garrymorris enclosure was picked out in this way from a 1973 photograph in the Geological Survey of Ireland collection. Circular enclosures of this kind are common across Ireland and typically date from the early medieval period, though they can range considerably in age and function, from ringforts used as defended farmsteads to enclosures with ritual or funerary purposes. The roughly 36-metre diameter here falls within the range typical of a small ringfort. To complicate matters further, a modern farm road running northeast to southwest appears to cut through the eastern quadrant of the feature, meaning part of the original circuit has likely already been disturbed or destroyed.