Enclosure, Loughtally, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Loughtally, Co. Tipperary

On a north-south ridge in the undulating pastureland of Loughtally, there sits an enclosure so thoroughly levelled that most visitors would walk across it without a second thought.

What survives is subtle: a slight scarp of around 23 centimetres along the western and southern edges, and a shallow external fosse, the kind of ditch that once defined the perimeter of the enclosed space, just under 3 metres wide and barely 9 centimetres deep at this point. The eastern quadrant has been further obscured by dumped earth and rubble, leaving only the roughest sense of a boundary that once had real presence in the landscape.

Enclosures of this type are among the most common archaeological features in Ireland, typically associated with early medieval settlement, where a circular earthen bank and ditch defined a farmstead or place of some local significance. This particular example measures roughly 29 metres across on its north-northwest to south-southeast axis. The Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1904 to 1905 recorded it as a circular feature closer to 41 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west, with the fosse clearly visible in the southern and western quadrants. The shrinkage between that record and what survives today reflects a century of agricultural pressure. A farmyard still sits to the east of the ridge, and the land falls away to the west, which may partly explain why the western and southern portions have fared slightly better. An aerial photograph taken in May 1977 confirmed that what remained was still legible from the air, even as it was becoming difficult to read at ground level. A second enclosure lies approximately 28 metres to the southwest, suggesting this part of the ridge once carried more human activity than the present pastoral landscape implies.

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Pete F
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