Enclosure, Russborough, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Russborough, Co. Wicklow

On a gentle east-facing slope near Russborough in County Wicklow, there is an ancient circular enclosure that is essentially invisible to anyone standing on the ground.

With an estimated maximum diameter of around 35 metres, it registers only as a faint trace on aerial photographs, one of those quiet anomalies that the landscape absorbs so thoroughly that centuries can pass without casual notice.

Circular enclosures of this kind are scattered across Ireland, and their purposes varied considerably. Some served as the enclosed farmsteads known as raths or ringforts, which were common in the early medieval period; others may be earlier still, associated with burial, ceremony, or livestock management. At Russborough, the surviving evidence is too slight to assign the site confidently to any one category or period. What the aerial photographic record does confirm is that something deliberate was once laid out here, a boundary of meaningful size on a slope that would have offered a reasonable outlook to the east.

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Pete F
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