Enclosure

The National Monuments Service's description

According to O’Toole (1933, 235), within a roughly rectangular ‘garden’ (dims. c. 22m NW-SE; c. 17m NE-SW) there is, ‘a small enclosure which is called the “old Church-yard.” It is stated that it was formerly used for the burial of unbaptized children [CW013-071002-] and that within this enclosure there was, ‘a very remarkable stone [CW013-071003-]’. The enclosure was levelled c. 1970 (Seaver and O’Neill, unpublished report, February 2022). According to an ASI field report (September 1988), ‘The stone formerly stood at the centre of a small enclosure defined by an earthen bank about 8m distant from the stone. To N of stone and inside [the] bank a trench (L c. 3m) with baked sides and filled with white ash or burnt bone was found during cultivation. There are no visible surface traces of the bank and the stone has been moved to the adjacent field boundary’. Prehistoric pottery was found in 1940 in rabbit burrows under the ‘stone’ (Seaver and O’Neill, unpublished report, February 2022).
Based on the available information it is not possible to classify the enclosure with any certainty, though its association with prehistoric pottery and a possible funerary monument (CW013-071003-) suggests it may be a barrow.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of revised upload: 21 February 2022

References

O'Toole, E. 1933 The parish of Ballon, Co. Carlow. Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society 11, 201-310.

Seaver, M. and O’Neill, T. 2022 Report of an archaeological monument at Ballon, Co. Carlow. Unpublished report submitted to the National Monuments Service.