Enclosure, Ballyogan Beg, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Ballyogan Beg, Co. Clare

At the foot of a south-facing slope in a quiet northeast-to-southwest valley in County Clare, a circular drystone wall encloses a modest patch of ground roughly twenty metres across.

What makes it worth a second glance is precisely what it lacks: age, mystery, and the usual apparatus of historical significance. This is a modern enclosure, its wall standing between one and one-point-two metres high, built from dry-laid stone in the age-old manner but without the age-old provenance. It sits in the landscape wearing the costume of an ancient field boundary or cashel, the latter being a type of early medieval stone ringfort common across Munster, without quite being either.

Drystone construction, in which stones are fitted together without mortar, has been practised in Ireland for millennia, and the technique itself changes little across the centuries. That continuity is part of what makes a structure like this quietly interesting. Without documentary evidence or archaeological investigation, a wall of this kind could pass for something far older to a casual eye. At Ballyogan Beg, the enclosure occupies a sheltered spot, tucked against the slope in a way that reflects sound practical thinking, whether the purpose was to contain livestock, protect a garden, or simply mark a boundary.

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Pete F
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