What is recorded here

Enclosure in Ashbrook is a broken circle of collapsed stone and old earth on the north end of a ridge in County Galway. It once held a private burial ground, and it still holds that shape, even though quarrying has bitten into the north side and grass has swallowed most of the line. The dead may have been laid inside while the living walked the demesne above them, and the stones may have stood as a boundary between memory and forgetting. What remains is not grand, but it is exact enough to show that the place was made, used, and then left to decay.

On N end of a ridge within the former Ashbrook Demesne. Marked on 1st ed. of OS 6-inch map as a widely spaced bivallate enclosure. What survives is a poorly preserved subcircular enclosure (E-W 22.2m int., N-S 20.5m) defined by a bank overlain by a collapsed drystone wall. This wall encloses an overgrown 19th-C burial ground labelled 'Burial Ground (Private)' on 3rd ed. (1947-8) of OS 6-inch map. Directly outside the bank is a berm (Wth c. 7m) defined along its outer edge by a scarp (H 1m max.). Beyond the scarp, from SE to SW, are traces of a possible fosse cutting across N end of the ridge. The monument has been disturbed by quarrying at N, and to a lesser extent at SSE and SSW. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

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