Promontory fort - coastal

The National Monuments Service's description

Ballymore Point, a fairly level NE-SW running promontory, marks the E side of the entrance to Ventry Harbour. About midway along the promontory, a low bank and external fosse extend 28m across the promontory from near the NW edge to within 16m of the SE edge. The bank is only 1m high and 2m wide and the fosse measures .5m deep and 1.25m wide. Abutting the bank at its SE end is a rectangular hut-site, 3 x 4.5m, with an enclosing bank, .5m high. A later wall with a slight internal fosse skirts the edge of the cliff isolating 2 smaller promontories to SW and S. At the W edge of the latter is a D-shaped enclosure measuring 2.2m x 2m with banks less than .3m high; the W side has fallen into the sea. This is probably a hut-site. A larger depression to E of the latter seems to result from quarrying, perhaps for material for the later walls. Although the defences are very slight, the presence of hut-sites, and the local name for the site, An Dúinín (An Seabhac 1939, 49), suggest it is a promontory fort.

The above description is derived from J. Cuppage, ‘Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne’ (1986), no. 264. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 4 August 2013