Enclosure, Glenaclara, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Enclosures
On a south-facing slope in Glenaclara, County Galway, a rectangular earthwork sits in a state of quiet deterioration, its original purpose long since overtaken by the more practical concerns of later farming generations.
The enclosure measures roughly 65 metres north to south and 56 metres east to west, making it a substantial feature, though you would be forgiven for walking past it without quite registering what you were seeing.
What survives is defined by a bank and an external fosse, which is simply a ditch dug around the outside of the bank, a combination commonly used in early medieval Ireland to demarcate enclosed settlements or high-status farmsteads. The southern side is the best preserved portion; elsewhere, the monument has been disrupted by later agricultural boundaries. Two field walls cut across it, one running through the WNW and ENE sides and another extending from this and cutting through the enclosing element at the southwest. This kind of incremental damage is typical of landscapes that have been continuously farmed for centuries, with each generation of landowners rearranging boundaries without any particular regard for what lay beneath or within the earlier earthworks. The result is a palimpsest of activity, the old form still legible in outline but fractured and overwritten by more recent use.