Enclosure, Kilmoney, Co. Kildare

Co. Kildare |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Kilmoney, Co. Kildare

What remains at Kilmoney in County Kildare is barely legible as a human construction at all. A large rectangular enclosure, roughly 60 metres long and 40 metres wide, survives only as a low earthen bank along two of its sides and a slight scarp elsewhere, the whole barely rising more than a metre above the surrounding ground. It is the kind of site that rewards patience and a low sun.

The enclosure sits at the southern end of what may be a medieval field system, with a possible ecclesiastical enclosure lying immediately to its west. That proximity to a church-related boundary is suggestive, though the precise relationship between the two remains unclear. What is known is that the site was already in poor condition before 1957, when land reclamation work partially levelled it, removing much of what had survived. A cairn, a roughly piled mound of stones that in Irish archaeology frequently marks a burial, was recorded within the enclosure and produced possible evidence of human burial. To the west of the main enclosure, and separating it from the ecclesiastical site, a second rectangular area of similar dimensions, approximately 56 metres by 38 metres, is traceable by its own low scarp, though its southeastern boundary has been entirely removed. Whether this was a companion enclosure or simply a field associated with the larger complex has not been resolved. Aerial photographs taken in 1967 and 1968 helped document what little could still be seen above ground at that time.

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Pete F
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