Enclosure, Leitra, Co. Clare

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Leitra, Co. Clare

On an east-facing slope in the exposed karst landscape of Leitra, there is a small drystone enclosure that spent the better part of a century classified as something it probably is not.

Karst terrain, the bare limestone pavement characteristic of much of County Clare, gives the Burren its distinctive look, and it is precisely the kind of landscape where ancient enclosures do survive. That association, it seems, is what gave this modest structure its long run of official significance.

The enclosure appeared on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1916, marked with a solid line, and was subsequently listed as a protected monument in both the Sites and Monuments Record of 1992 and the Record of Monuments and Places in 1996. The implication of those listings was that it might represent a historic or prehistoric enclosure, the sort of circular walled space that archaeologists associate with early settlement, farming, or ritual activity in Ireland. When the site was physically inspected in 1999, however, the enclosure turned out to measure roughly fifteen metres in internal diameter and to be of apparently modern construction. The drystone wall defining it, built without mortar in the traditional manner of Clare field boundaries, showed none of the characteristics that would place it in an earlier period. Some hazel scrub has established itself in the surrounding area, softening the exposed limestone a little, but the structure itself remains a quietly unremarkable piece of relatively recent agricultural infrastructure that cartographic longevity temporarily elevated into something more.

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Pete F
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