Enclosure, Killamude, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Enclosures
In the townland of Killamude, in County Galway, there is an enclosure old enough to have been formally recorded as an archaeological monument, yet quiet enough that almost nothing about it has made it into the public domain.
It sits on the landscape, noted and numbered, its outlines presumably still visible to someone who knows where to look, but largely unaccompanied by the explanatory detail that surrounds better-documented sites.
Enclosures of this kind are among the most common, and most varied, features of the Irish archaeological landscape. The term covers a wide range of structures, from early medieval ringforts, which were enclosed farmsteads typically bounded by an earthen bank and ditch, to ecclesiastical enclosures marking the boundaries of early Christian settlements, to prehistoric enclosures whose purposes remain debated. Without further detail specific to Killamude, it is not possible to say with confidence which tradition this particular site belongs to, when it was built, or by whom. What can be said is that Galway's interior is well populated with such features, many of them still embedded in field systems and farm boundaries, their original forms softened by centuries of agriculture and weather.