Enclosure, Jockeyhall, Co. Limerick

Co. Limerick |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Jockeyhall, Co. Limerick

There is an earthwork in the pastureland of Jockeyhall, in County Limerick, that does not appear on any Ordnance Survey historic map.

It has simply sat in gently undulating farmland, more or less unrecorded, until aerial and satellite imagery finally caught up with it. The fact that it escaped the attention of the OS surveyors who once walked and mapped this island in exhaustive detail makes it an oddity worth pausing over.

The monument was identified by Sarah McCutcheon, Executive Archaeologist with Limerick County Council, working from overhead imagery rather than a ground survey. It takes the form of a subrectangular enclosure, the kind of earthwork, essentially a defined area bounded by a low bank, that could date to any number of periods in Irish prehistory or the early medieval era. Enclosures of this general type were used for settlement, for agriculture, for ritual, and sometimes for purposes that remain genuinely unclear. This particular example measures approximately 70 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and 50 metres on the northwest to southeast axis, making it a substantial feature. It sits close to the townland boundary with Tonbaun to the southwest, a detail that may or may not be coincidental; townland boundaries in Ireland frequently fossilise far older divisions in the landscape. The monument is visible on Digital Globe orthophotos taken between 2011 and 2013, and on Google Earth imagery captured in March 2017 and February 2020. The record was compiled by Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly and uploaded in August 2020.

Because the site lies in what appears to be working pasture, access would require landowner permission. The enclosure is not signposted and there is no formal public access. The low bank that defines it may be subtle at ground level, as earthworks of this kind often read far more clearly from the air than underfoot, where centuries of ploughing, grazing, and weathering can reduce them to gentle undulations in the grass. Anyone visiting with permission would do well to consult the Google Earth imagery beforehand to get a sense of its outline before trying to trace it on foot.

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