Enclosure, Murrooghkilly, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Murrooghkilly, Co. Clare

On a natural ledge partway up the south-western slopes of Murrooghkilly hill in County Clare, a semicircular enclosure sits quietly against a ridge, using the landscape itself as one of its walls.

The straight eastern side of the enclosure is not a built wall at all but the face of the ridge, a piece of practical economy that tells you something about whoever chose this spot. The enclosure measures roughly 35 metres north to south and 22 metres east to west, making it a substantial space, and it does not stand alone. Further enclosures are joined to it at the north and south, and within the complex there are traces that may be the remains of hut sites, suggesting this was once a place where people actually lived and worked rather than simply a boundary marker or field division.

The site was not identified through ground survey but spotted in satellite imagery captured by Digital Globe between 2011 and 2013, and subsequently reported to the National Monuments Service by Ros Ó Maoldúin. That origin story is itself quietly interesting. Enclosures of this kind, typically circular or near-circular earthwork boundaries whose precise date and function can be difficult to pin down without excavation, are scattered across the Irish uplands, often overlooked precisely because they blend so well into the terrain. Here, the builders went a step further, incorporating a natural geological feature into the design, making the structure harder to read from the ground and, apparently, easier to miss entirely until someone looked at it from above.

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Pete F
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