Enclosure, Newtowndrangan, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Newtowndrangan, Co. Tipperary

In the pasture fields of Newtowndrangan, in County Tipperary, lies an archaeological monument that is entirely invisible.

No earthwork rises above the grass, no stones mark the boundary, and a walker crossing the ground would have no idea they were passing over anything at all. What remains, according to archaeological testing carried out in 2001, is a possible circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank so thoroughly worn down over the centuries that it has effectively merged with the surrounding landscape.

The site sits on a south-west-facing slope in gently undulating terrain dotted with low natural hillocks, which makes the task of identifying any man-made feature all the more difficult. The enclosure itself was identified by Lennon in an unpublished archaeological testing report from 2001, though even that identification comes with a note of caution: this is a possible enclosure, not a confirmed one. What lends the area genuine archaeological weight is its immediate surroundings. Two bowl-barrows, a type of burial mound typically dating from the Bronze Age, lie within roughly 90 metres to the north-north-west, and a further earthwork sits approximately 85 metres to the west-north-west. Bowl-barrows are among the most common prehistoric funerary monuments in Ireland, consisting of a roughly circular mound enclosed by a ditch, and their proximity here suggests that this part of Tipperary was a place of some ceremonial or ritual significance over a long period.

The clustering of monuments in such a small area is what makes this corner of Newtowndrangan quietly interesting, even if none of it announces itself to the eye. The enclosure, whatever its original purpose, now exists only in the archaeological record and in the slightly altered lie of the land beneath the pasture.

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