Enclosure, Kilcommon More, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Enclosures
On the summit of a ridge in Kilcommon More, there is an ancient enclosure that most people will walk straight over without ever knowing it is there.
It leaves no impression on the surface, no raised earthwork, no scatter of stones, nothing to suggest that anything of significance once occupied this rise in the Tipperary countryside. The only way it has ever been seen is from the air.
Aerial photography taken on the 3rd of August 1997 revealed what is known as a cropmark, a phenomenon where buried features influence the growth of crops above them, producing subtle differences in colour or height that become legible when viewed from altitude. In this case, the enclosure resolves as a roughly circular outline, though a field boundary cuts across its south-eastern quadrant, obscuring that portion of the shape. Enclosures of this kind are common across Ireland and can range in date from the prehistoric period through to the early medieval, often representing the remains of a ringfort, a farmstead, or a ritual site. What makes this particular example quietly interesting is that a second cropmark enclosure was identified approximately seventy metres to the west, suggesting that whoever settled or used this ridge did so in some concentration. The two sites sit together on elevated ground, under tillage today, their relationship to one another unexcavated and largely unknown.