Enclosure, Shancashlaun, Co. Kilkenny

Co. Kilkenny |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Shancashlaun, Co. Kilkenny

In the townland of Shancashlaun, in the quiet interior of County Kilkenny, there is a field enclosure old enough to have been formally recorded as an archaeological monument, yet obscure enough that almost nothing about it has made it into the public domain.

It sits in a county better known for its medieval castles and round towers, while this particular feature, whatever its shape or scale, waits in the landscape largely unremarked.

Enclosures of this kind are among the most common and least understood monuments in the Irish countryside. They range from prehistoric ring ditches and early medieval ringforts, which were enclosed farmsteads typically defined by an earthen bank and fosse, to later ecclesiastical or agricultural boundaries. The name Shancashlaun is itself suggestive; the Irish "Sean" generally means old, and "caisleán" means castle or fortification, hinting that the locality carried a sense of antiquity long before any modern survey took an interest in it. Whether the enclosure relates to that embedded memory in the placename, or represents something entirely separate, is not recorded. What is clear is that the monument has been identified and classified, placed on the national record, and assigned the quiet dignity of a site worth preserving, even if the details that would explain what it actually is remain, for now, out of reach.

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Pete F
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