Enclosure, Noughaval, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Noughaval, Co. Clare

On a gentle south-facing slope in Noughaval, County Clare, two circular enclosures sit in unreclaimed land, separated by roughly twenty-five metres and largely forgotten by the surrounding landscape.

The more documented of the pair is subcircular in shape, roughly eighteen metres in diameter, and its boundary wall tells a quiet story of overlapping eras: an older, grassed-over stone wall forms the core of the structure, with a later drystone wall built directly on top of it. Enclosures of this kind, broadly circular or oval walled boundaries typically associated with early medieval settlement or agricultural use, are found across Ireland in varying states of preservation, but this one has the particular quality of a place that has simply been left alone.

The site was brought to the attention of the National Monuments Service by Conn Herriott, and its presence was confirmed through Digital Globe orthophotography taken between 2011 and 2013, aerial imagery that allows features invisible at ground level to resolve into recognisable shapes from above. That the enclosure required aerial confirmation rather than straightforward field identification says something about how thoroughly the landscape has absorbed it. The grassed-over wall would read, to a casual eye, as little more than a slight rise or an irregular ridge in the turf. The second enclosure to the northwest, close enough to suggest a relationship between the two, has received less documentation, and what that relationship was, whether the two structures were contemporary or separated by generations of use, remains an open question.

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Pete F
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