Enclosure, Knockeen, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Enclosures
Some archaeological sites announce themselves with earthworks, standing stones, or dramatic hilltop silhouettes.
This one exists, at present, only as a shadow in a field. A circular enclosure roughly thirty metres across, it sits on a gentle north-facing slope near Knockeen in County Wicklow, and the only confirmed record of its shape comes from a single aerial photograph, where it appears as a cropmark, the faint differential in crop growth that betrays a buried feature beneath the soil. At ground level, there is nothing to see.
The enclosure lies approximately fifty metres north of the outer ramparts of Rathgall hillfort, one of the most significant later Bronze Age sites in Ireland, a large multivallate hillfort whose innermost enclosure enclosed a substantial metalworking centre. The proximity of this smaller circular feature to Rathgall is unlikely to be accidental, though what the relationship between the two was remains unknown. Enclosures of this general type in Ireland could have served many purposes, from settlement and agriculture to ritual or funerary use, and without excavation the function of this one cannot be determined. What the aerial evidence does confirm is a roughly circular form with a diameter consistent with a domestic or agricultural enclosure of early medieval or prehistoric date.