Enclosure (Large), Baurnafea, Co. Kilkenny

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Enclosures

Enclosure (Large), Baurnafea, Co. Kilkenny

Most earthworks this size do not survive as well as they should, which makes the one at Baurnafea in County Kilkenny quietly remarkable.

Sitting on a south-west-facing slope at the western edge of a ridge of high land, it is a large sub-square enclosure, almost perfectly proportioned at roughly 80 metres north to south and 81 metres east to west, with gently rounded angles that give it an organic rather than engineered feel. The defining feature is a substantial earthen bank, still standing to between two and nearly three metres on its exterior face, paired with an outer fosse, a defensive ditch, that runs around the perimeter and measures over three metres wide and more than a metre deep in places. Where the bank has not survived in full profile, the ground drops away in a scarp, the gradual erosion of centuries doing what it always does.

What makes the geometry of the place particularly interesting is that the enclosure was not built on flat ground. It wraps around the south-western end of a natural ridge running north-east to south-west, meaning the interior is far from level; the sides slope inward from south-east, south, and north-west, while the top of the ridge tilts gently down towards the north-east. Whoever chose this spot was working with the landscape rather than against it, using existing topography to add height and presence to an already imposing structure. A gap of about two and a half metres in the bank and fosse on the north-north-east side is thought to be the original entrance, though the bank material around it shows signs of degradation, making a definitive reading difficult. The site is known locally as Ráithín Field, a name worth noting; ráithín is a diminutive of the Irish ráth, meaning a ringfort or enclosed settlement, suggesting generations of local memory attached to this earthwork long before anyone formally recorded it. Trees and scrub now grow around the perimeter, while the interior remains under grass.

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