Enclosure, Magherareagh, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Magherareagh, Co. Tipperary

On a natural rise in the hilly terrain of Magherareagh, County Tipperary, there is an enclosure that nobody has been able to walk into for some time.

Dense, impenetrable scrub has closed around it, making any physical survey impossible. What we know of it comes instead from maps, and that paper record is itself quietly interesting.

The Ordnance Survey six-inch maps of 1840 and 1907 both show the site as a small, circular area. The more detailed twenty-five-inch OS map, however, tells a slightly different story: the enclosure is irregular in shape, running roughly thirty metres north to south and twenty-five metres east to west. Its boundary is defined partly by a scarp, a steep earthen or rock face cut into the slope, which may have been quarried into along its eastern side, and partly by a raised bank running from the south-east around to the west. On the western side, the map also indicates a fosse, a defensive ditch, described as quite wide, running from the south-west around to the north-west. The combination of scarp, bank, and fosse suggests an enclosure built with some care for its own definition and defence, even if its original purpose remains unclear. Immediately to its north sits a considerably larger enclosure, which may or may not have had a functional relationship with this smaller one.

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Pete F
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