Enclosure, St. Margarets, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Enclosures

Enclosure, St. Margarets, Co. Wexford

In a caravan park near St. Margarets in County Wexford, a patch of open ground holds the faint outline of something much older than the surrounding pitches and touring routes.

It is not marked by any stone or plaque; the only reason anyone knows it is there at all is because, viewed from directly above, the grass gives it away.

Cropmarks are the aerial archaeologist's most reliable informant. Where buried walls, ditches, or foundations lie just beneath the surface, the soil retains moisture differently, and the crops or grass above grow at a slightly different rate or colour. From the ground, nothing appears unusual. From a low-flying aircraft, the geometry of a lost structure can become suddenly legible. In this case, vertical aerial photographs taken in 1973, catalogued under the reference GSIAP: T 63/2, revealed the cropmark of a rectangular enclosure sitting on a broad, low hill. The feature measures approximately 25 metres east to west and 15 metres north to south. Enclosures of this kind are found across Ireland in considerable variety, associated with everything from early medieval settlement and farming activity to ecclesiastical use, though the notes for this particular site do not specify a period or function.

What makes the situation quietly odd is its current context. The enclosure has not been excavated or extensively studied, yet it has been preserved, whether by design or good fortune, as an open area within the caravan park that now occupies the hill. The buried geometry persists, unexcavated and largely unannounced, beneath a space kept clear among the caravans.

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Pete F
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