Enclosure, Skahanagh, Co. Cork

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Skahanagh, Co. Cork

Along the north bank of the Mealagh River in West Cork, a large circular enclosure sits swallowed by vegetation, largely unreachable and easy to overlook.

What makes it quietly puzzling is the gap in its cartographic record: the subcircular form, roughly 50 to 60 metres in diameter, appears on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1902, yet is entirely absent from the equivalent map of 1842. Whether that gap reflects a change on the ground, an oversight by earlier surveyors, or something else entirely, remains an open question.

The site sits close to a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead typical of early medieval Ireland, usually defined by an earthen bank and ditch. This enclosure is a distinct feature from that neighbouring ringfort, though whether the two were ever related in function or date is not recorded. Writing in 1998, a researcher named Myler described it as a large round enclosure encompassed with a bank of small stones, a description that suggests a modest but deliberate boundary rather than a natural feature. The enclosure is recorded in the Sites and Monuments Record for County Cork, despite Myler's claim to the contrary.

The site is noted as heavily overgrown and inaccessible, so it exists more as a presence on old maps and in brief written descriptions than as something a visitor could readily inspect. Its interest lies less in what can be seen and more in what remains unresolved: a structure that appeared, or was noticed, sometime between 1842 and 1902, defined by a ring of small stones in a river-side field, and since reclaimed almost entirely by the landscape around it.

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Pete F
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