Enclosure, Graignagower, Co. Waterford

Co. Waterford |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Graignagower, Co. Waterford

It took the clearance of a forestry plantation to bring this one back into view. Somewhere beneath the canopy of a west-facing slope in Graignagower, County Waterford, a sub-rectangular enclosure had been quietly sitting out the centuries, its boundaries reduced to a low bank of earth and stone, barely half a metre high in places and around three metres wide. Only when the trees came down did the outline become legible again.

The enclosure measures roughly 36.6 metres east to west and 26 metres north to south, and what survives of the bank retains traces of revetment on both its inner and outer faces. Revetment, in this context, means a facing of set stone intended to hold the bank in shape, a detail that suggests some care was taken in the original construction. The eastern stretch of the bank has since been removed, leaving a gap in the circuit. Extending eastward from the north-east angle, a field bank survives for around 44 metres as scattered clusters of set and displaced boulders, hinting at a wider agricultural landscape once organised around this spot. A second enclosure lies roughly 20 metres to the west, suggesting this was not an isolated feature but part of a denser pattern of early land use across the hillside.

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Pete F
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