Ring-ditch, Raheenduff, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Ring-ditch, Raheenduff, Co. Wexford

In a field on a gentle south-westerly slope in County Wexford, something nearly invisible from the surface has been pulled into focus by technology.

A ring-ditch at Raheenduff, roughly subrectangular in shape and measuring around thirteen metres east to west by ten metres north to south, sits quietly beneath the ground, its outline formed by interrupted sections of a single fosse, the term used for a ditch or trench that typically defined or enclosed a space of significance in the prehistoric or early medieval landscape.

The feature came to light through a magnetic gradiometer survey, a non-invasive technique that detects subtle variations in the soil's magnetic properties caused by buried features such as ditches, pits, or hearths. This kind of survey leaves the ground entirely undisturbed while revealing what lies beneath, and in this case it picked out the Raheenduff enclosure as part of a wider survey across an extensive area, catalogued under reference 20R0129 and published by Nicholls in 2020. The interrupted nature of the ditch, meaning it does not run as a continuous cut but breaks at intervals, is a characteristic seen in certain prehistoric enclosures, though without excavation it is difficult to assign a firm date or function to the site.

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