Enclosure, Lowville, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Enclosures

Enclosure, Lowville, Co. Galway

In a field of gently undulating grassland in County Galway, a faint circle in the vegetation marks where something once stood.

No walls remain, no earthwork rises above the surrounding ground, and the trees that once filled the interior have long since gone. What persists is just a ring of differential growth, roughly 34 metres across, where the soil remembers a boundary that the land surface itself no longer shows.

The first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, produced in Ireland during the mid-nineteenth century, recorded this as a circular tree-filled enclosure, the kind of feature that appears throughout the Irish countryside in various states of survival. Enclosures of this type are broadly associated with early medieval settlement, though without excavation it is difficult to say much with certainty about date or function. What the map captured was already, presumably, a remnant rather than an active site. By the time anyone came to record it archaeologically, the trees had gone entirely, and a drain had been cut through the monument running east to west, further disrupting whatever subsurface deposits might have survived. The Ahascragh River flows roughly 300 metres to the west.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Enclosure, Lowville, Co. Galway. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement