Enclosure, Srawickeen, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Enclosures
In the townland of Srawickeen, in County Clare, there is an enclosure.
That much is known. An enclosure in the Irish archaeological sense typically means a defined area bounded by an earthen bank, a wall, or a ditch, and such features appear across the Irish landscape in enormous variety, ranging from early medieval ringforts that once enclosed farmsteads to ceremonial or funerary sites of far greater antiquity. What makes this particular one quietly compelling is precisely the extent of what remains unrecorded: it sits on the map as a placeholder, a named thing whose details have not yet been committed to any publicly available account.
Srawickeen is a small townland in Clare, a county whose western limestone plateau and more sheltered eastern parishes contain an exceptional density of archaeological remains. Without further detail in the available record, the enclosure at Srawickeen cannot be dated, assigned a likely function, or described in terms of its present condition or dimensions. It exists, for now, as a category rather than a biography, acknowledged but not yet explained.