Enclosure, Lisheen, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Lisheen, Co. Tipperary

On an east-facing slope outside Lisheen in County Tipperary, a circular earthwork sits quietly in good pasture, its outlines so gently worn that a casual walker might read it as nothing more than a slight rise in the ground.

What survives is a roughly circular enclosure measuring about 31 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, its perimeter defined by the remnants of a levelled bank and a low scarp rather than by anything dramatically upstanding. The internal and external heights measure only around 0.2 metres, meaning the whole thing barely announces itself above the surrounding field.

Enclosures of this kind are relatively common across the Irish landscape, and most are thought to date from the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, though without excavation it is impossible to say with certainty. They are sometimes described as ringforts, the circular enclosed settlements that served as farmsteads for individual families or small communities. What makes this example worth attention is the detail of its construction as it survives. The bank, where it remains traceable, is still around 7.7 metres wide overall, narrowing to about 4.2 metres at the top. To the south and south-west, there is a possible trace of a fosse, the ditch that would originally have run outside the bank and whose excavated material was likely used to build it up. The fosse here is shallow, only around 0.1 metres deep at its base, and about 5 metres wide, but its presence in two separate arcs around the enclosure suggests the original construction was more substantial than what the landscape now shows. The interior is level, consistent with a cleared domestic or agricultural space.

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