Enclosure, Ballybaun, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Enclosures
In a gently rolling corner of County Clare, a low-lying field holds a shape that the surrounding pasture has almost entirely swallowed.
Roughly D-shaped in plan, this enclosure measures about 31.7 metres north to south and 31 metres east to west, its boundary visible today only as a grassed-over spread of stone, nowhere rising more than half a metre from the ground. The fact that it registers at all as a distinct form in the landscape, rather than simply blending into the field system around it, is part of what makes it quietly worth pausing over.
The enclosure sits within an extensive field system, sloping gently to the south-east and sheltered by higher ground on all sides. Where the boundary runs from south to east, it is defined by that low, spread stonewall remnant, between 1.7 and 2.7 metres wide. Along the eastern side, however, a straight natural scarp, roughly 1.5 metres high, takes over from the stonework entirely, suggesting that whoever built or used this enclosure was content to let the land itself do some of the work. At the western side, a gap of about 1.2 metres is flanked by a large stone on its northern edge, which may mark an original entrance. A second gap to the south-west is less certain; it could be a later break rather than an intended opening. Inside, along the northern perimeter, a stone spread defines what appears to be an internal subdivision, a smaller compartment roughly 10.5 metres by 4.1 metres, of the kind sometimes associated with animal management or storage in early historic or medieval enclosures. A second enclosure lies approximately 57 metres to the north-east, hinting that this was once part of a broader, organised use of the land. The enclosure was recorded as a cartographic feature, marked with hachures, on the 1916 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, though its origins are considerably older.