Barrow - ring-barrow

The National Monuments Service's description

On top of a natural sand hill. Described by Prendergast in 1954 as consisting of, ‘a central raised platform surrounded by one fosse and outer bank, all dug into and piled up on what is apparently a natural gravel mound. The fosse is interrupted in three places where an undug strip affords an entrance to the central area’. An accompanying sketch shows three entrances, at the NE, SE and W and gives the internal diameter as 37 yards [c. 34m] (NMI Correspondence Files, 17 May 1954). The bank, which was, ‘said to have been low, only 2 or 3 feet [0.6-0.9m] high’, was levelled in October 1954 (OPW Correspondence Files, 18 October 1954). Gibbons (1990, 6) speculated that this might have been a henge. Certainly three causewayed entrances to the interior, if they are all original, is unusual. However, given the size of the monument, and with an external bank and internal fosse, it is more likely to be a ring-barrow.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 27 March 2023

References

Gibbons, M. 1990 The archaeology of early settlement in county Kilkenny. In W. Nolan , K. Whelan (eds.), Kilkenny: history and society, 1-32. Dublin. Geography Publications.