Enclosure, Loughshinny, Co. Dublin
Co. Dublin |
Enclosures
Between Loughshinny harbour and the well-known promontory fort at Drumanagh on the north Dublin coast, there is an enclosure that most walkers would pass without a second thought, largely because there is nothing obvious to see.
No earthwork breaks the surface, no stones protrude through the turf. The only evidence that anything is here at all comes from above, where a vertical aerial photograph reveals a curving cropmark, the kind of faint discolouration in vegetation that betrays a buried fosse, or defensive ditch, cutting across a short headland. The site sits under rough grass, well fenced off, and gives nothing away to anyone standing at its edge.
The cropmark, recorded on an Ordnance Survey aerial photograph, suggests the enclosure once used the sea cliff itself as part of its boundary, with a ditch completing the circuit across the landward side to isolate the headland. This is broadly the same logic employed by promontory forts, a class of enclosure common along the Irish coastline in which natural coastal topography does much of the defensive work, leaving only one approach to be cut off by earthworks. The relationship to Drumanagh, the large promontory fort immediately to the south, is not fully understood, but the proximity is notable. The research compiled by Geraldine Stout and updated by Christine Baker makes clear that the site currently leaves no visible trace on the ground, making the aerial photograph the primary record of its existence.
The more urgent story here may belong to the cliff rather than to the enclosure itself. Erosion along this stretch of coast is ongoing and visible, and when viewed from Drumanagh headland to the south, recent collapse is already apparent in the exposed soil face on the cliff facade directly below the site. The enclosure, whatever its original form or date, is losing its physical context to the sea incrementally. There is no formal access and the heavy fencing deters approach, but the Drumanagh headland to the south offers a vantage point from which the coastal erosion affecting the wider area becomes apparent. What archaeology survives beneath the grass here is likely to be time-limited in a very practical sense.