Enclosure, Skehanagh (Connello Lower By.), Co. Limerick

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Skehanagh (Connello Lower By.), Co. Limerick

Aerial photography has a way of revealing what ground-level inspection misses entirely, and that is precisely the case at Skehanagh, in the barony of Connello Lower in County Limerick, where a circular cropmark photographed from above betrays the presence of an ancient enclosure that is almost invisible to anyone walking the field.

The cropmark, the telltale variation in vegetation growth that signals buried or disturbed ground beneath, showed a clearly circular form from the air; on the ground, what survives is rather more ambiguous, a sub-rectangular area measuring roughly thirteen metres north to south and sixteen metres east to west.

The enclosure was recorded by Denis Power and uploaded to the national record in August 2011. What can be made out in the waterlogged pasture on the eastern side of a local stream is a low earthen bank, rising only about thirty centimetres above the interior ground surface and fifty-five centimetres above the exterior. Around it runs a fosse, which is simply a ditch dug to define or defend a boundary, here about four metres wide but now shallow at just twenty centimetres deep. The southern side of the enclosing bank has been almost completely lost, making the circuit difficult to trace in that section, while the fosse is most legible at the south-west. Enclosures of this general type, defined by a bank and external ditch, are found across Ireland and often, though not always, indicate early medieval settlement, the remains of a ringfort reduced by centuries of agriculture and waterlogging to the faintest of outlines.

The site sits in level, partially waterlogged pasture, which means ground conditions matter considerably when visiting. Wet seasons will make the terrain difficult underfoot, and the low banks are subtle enough in any conditions that knowing what to look for in advance is worthwhile. The fosse at the south-west corner offers the clearest physical evidence, and that is probably the most productive place to orient yourself once in the field. The enclosure is not signposted or formally presented, and its interest lies precisely in that quality of near-erasure, a shape that only fully resolves when you know to look for the slight rise and fall in the ground, or when you have the aerial image in hand for comparison.

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