Enclosure, Monavarnoge, Co. Cork

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Enclosures

Enclosure, Monavarnoge, Co. Cork

At Monavarnoge in County Cork, an arc of earth and stone bank curves from north-north-west to north-north-east, standing about 1.3 metres high and faced with stone on its outer side.

On its own, that would be unremarkable enough. What makes the site more interesting is what sits roughly six metres to the south-west: three upright stones arranged in a rough triangle, each oriented with its long axis running east to west, the tallest reaching just under a metre in height. A fourth stone lies on the eastern edge of the group, not embedded in the ground, as though it has simply been set aside or has shifted over time from its original position.

The enclosure sits immediately south of a feature recorded as a possible ringfort, a type of circular or oval farmstead enclosure used throughout early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around the sixth to the twelfth century. The relationship between the arc of bank and the ringfort to its north is not entirely clear, and it may be that the enclosure represents an annexe or outwork associated with that earlier defended settlement. The three standing stones add a further layer of ambiguity. Stone settings of this kind appear in various contexts across Ireland, sometimes associated with boundaries, sometimes with burial, sometimes with purposes that resist tidy classification. Whether these three stones and the enclosure bank belong to the same phase of activity, or represent separate episodes of use across the landscape at Monavarnoge, remains an open question.

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Pete F
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