Enclosure, Lissaniska, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Lissaniska, Co. Mayo

In a Mayo pasture, a circular enclosure that once crowned the top of a low rise has almost entirely ceased to exist.

What remains is less a monument than a suggestion: a faint outline, roughly fifteen metres across, that blurs at its edges into the natural curve of the ground beneath it. To look at it now, you would be hard pressed to call it anything in particular.

The site appears clearly enough on the 1838 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, recorded as a circular enclosure with a diameter of around twenty-five metres. Enclosures of this kind, often called ring forts or raths, were among the most common settlement forms in early medieval Ireland, typically consisting of a raised earthen bank enclosing a domestic or agricultural space. By the time the revised edition of the map was produced in 1917, only a semi-circular hachured feature was shown, suggesting that levelling had already been underway for some decades. The intervening years removed whatever remained. The discrepancy between the twenty-five-metre diameter recorded in 1838 and the fifteen-metre outline still faintly visible today may reflect how much has been lost, or simply the difficulty of reading a feature that has merged so thoroughly with the rise it once defined.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Enclosure, Lissaniska, Co. Mayo. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement