Ring-ditch, Bawnoge, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Ring-ditch, Bawnoge, Co. Wicklow

In a field near Bawnoge in County Wicklow, two circular ditches lie invisible to anyone walking the ground above them.

They only reveal themselves from the air, when the differential growth of crops traces their outlines in contrasting shades of green or gold. These are cropmarks, the spectral impressions left by ancient earthworks that have long since been ploughed flat, their ditches now visible only because the disturbed soil within them retains moisture differently from the surrounding ground, causing the vegetation above to grow taller or ripen more slowly.

The two ring-ditches at Bawnoge each measure approximately eight metres in diameter and sit just four metres to the south-south-east of a large enclosure. Ring-ditches of this kind are generally associated with prehistoric burial monuments, the eroded remnants of what were once round barrows or similar funerary structures, where a central mound was encircled by a dug ditch. The proximity of the pair to the adjacent enclosure suggests the area may have formed part of a wider ceremonial or settlement landscape. The cropmarks were photographed using Google Earth imagery captured in July 2018, the dry summer conditions of that month being precisely the kind that make such features most legible from above.

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