Enclosure, Strade, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Enclosures
Near the small settlement of Strade in County Mayo, an enclosure sits in the landscape as a quietly unresolved puzzle.
Enclosures of this kind, essentially defined areas bounded by earthen banks, ditches, or stone walls, appear across Ireland in considerable variety, ranging from prehistoric agricultural boundaries to the enclosed grounds of early medieval ringforts. Without more detailed survey information available for this particular example, its precise character and date remain unclear, which is itself a reminder of how much of rural Mayo's archaeological fabric has yet to be fully documented.
Strade itself is a place with a notable past. It is best known for its Franciscan friary, founded in the thirteenth century and later converted to a Dominican house, whose ruins still stand nearby. The village also holds a particular place in the history of the Irish land agitation movement, as the birthplace of Michael Davitt, founder of the Land League, whose story is commemorated locally. Whether the enclosure near Strade connects in any way to the monastic landscape around the friary, or represents something older altogether, is a question that fieldwork and closer examination would need to answer.