Enclosure, Ramstown, Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford |
Enclosures
Near Ramstown in County Wexford, a ghost is buried in the soil.
Not a ghost in any supernatural sense, but the kind that archaeologists quietly prize: a cropmark, the faint outline of a structure that vanished from the surface long ago but persists as a pattern in the way crops grow above it. On a slight north-west-facing slope, the earth retains the memory of a subcircular enclosure, its shape still legible from above even when nothing stands above ground.
The enclosure measures roughly 55 metres east to west and 46 metres north to south, and it is defined by what appears to be a continuous fosse, the term used for a ditch dug to mark a boundary or provide a degree of defence. Enclosures of this type are common across Ireland, many of them associated with early medieval settlement, though without excavation it is not possible to date this one precisely or assign it a function. What is known is that it was first reported by Jean Charles Caillére, and that aerial and satellite imagery has since confirmed its outline. Partial traces were visible on MapGenie imagery from 2013 to 2018, with a clearer view emerging from iMAPs data captured in 2022. Cropmarks like this appear because a buried ditch, even one long since silted up, holds moisture differently from the surrounding undisturbed soil, causing the plants above it to grow at a slightly different rate and colour, particularly in dry summers when the contrast becomes most pronounced.


