Enclosure, Killinure, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Killinure, Co. Tipperary

There is nothing to see at Killinure.

That is, precisely, what makes it worth knowing about. On a south-east-facing slope just below the crest of a hill in County Tipperary, a patch of rolling pasture holds the ghost of an early ecclesiastical site, one that has effectively vanished from the surface of the earth while remaining, in a technical sense, on the map.

The site consists of a sub-circular inner enclosure of roughly 27 metres in diameter, set within a larger ecclesiastical enclosure. An ecclesiastical enclosure is the boundary, often roughly circular, that defined the sacred and functional territory of an early Irish monastic or church settlement, and this one appears to have been a fairly complete example. The inner enclosure was clearly visible on the first Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1840, but by the revised edition of 1904 to 1905 only the southern half was being indicated, suggesting the northern portion had already been lost to agricultural activity or simple erosion. Writing in 1908, a researcher named Power recorded that traces of the ancient circular fence, amounting to an arc of about thirty yards, were still apparent near an old thorn-tree towards the centre of the field. Power also noted that a church once stood within the enclosure, and that burials had been recorded in the same field. Today, no trace of any of it remains visible above ground. The thorn-tree may or may not still be standing; the arc is gone.

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Pete F
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