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Linear earthwork in Ballymacthomas

Linear earthwork

What is recorded here

No visible break, no corner, no door. A sixteenth-metre rib of dead man and clay stretches east-west through the marsh, then curls southeast and forgets itself. The enclosure beside it may have used the rib as a wall, or the rib may have been laid across an older wall like a scar over a wound. Either way, somebody measured distance in that field before roads existed, drawing a line across the land as if the land owed them an answer.
'Situated in a field on the immediate eastern side of a tributary of the River Lee. The portion of land on which these sites occur slopes gently westwards. The main features within the complex are earthen enclosures, small mounds, a linear earthwork and a possible barrow with portions of double banks remaining. All of these sites are partially denuded due to reclaimation, this field still being slightly marshy despite efforts to reclaim the land for the purposes of pasture.............a linear earthwork, approximately 65.0m in length runs in an E-W direction before curving slightly to the southeast at its eastern terminus. Here it seems to peter out, the remains of the bank being indeterminate at this point. The above enclosure [KE038-148----] may utilise the linear earthwork as its enclosing element on the northern side or conversely, the enclosure may have been earlier with the earthwork constructed on top. Only excavation could solve the sequence of construction of these two sites. This earthwork is an average of 0.50m in height and has an average width of 10.0m.' Compiled by Michael Connolly for the Archaeological Survey of Ireland as part of a survey of the Lee Valley area in 1996-97. Date of upload: 02 May 2012

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What survives
Recorded monument

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