Ringfort - rath

The National Monuments Service's description

In pasture, 185m W of the River Maigue, which also marks a townland boundary with Tooreen. Not depicted on OSi historic maps. Levelled enclosure identified by Celie O’Rahilly, Limerick County Archaeologist in 1995, in advance of construction of the Croom bypass. Monuments consists of a bivallate ringfort (LI030-134----) with a second enclosure or ringfort (LI030-177----) immediately to N. A geophysical survey carried out in advance of excavation revealed that there were positive magnetic anomalies to the N and NE of the bivallate ringfort. Archaeological testing under licence No. 97E0400 was subsequently carried out on the bivallate enclosure by Thaddeus Breen in 1997. During the testing, it was confirmed that this monument represents the remains of a circular, ditched enclosure, possibly a bivallate ringfort (LI030-134----), with a second ringfort (LI030-177----) adjoining it (Breen 1998, 113). These monuments had been levelled in the 19th century. The line of the road-take impinged only on the area to the east of the conjoined site and included a possible ditch and external bank feature to the NE. The monitoring of topsoil-stripping revealed numerous drains that acted as drainage channels laid down in the not-too-distant past’ (Fitzpatrick 2000, 165). The remaining portion of the levelled conjoined monument, which is located outside the road-take to W of the Croom bypass, is unexcavated and is not visible on OSi orthophotos taken 2005-2012, or on Digital Globe orthophotos taken 2011-2013 or on Google Earth orthoimage taken 25/03/2017.

See attached Google Earth orthoimage

Compiled by: Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly

Date of upload: 24 October 2020

References

Breen, T. C. 1998 Archaeological investigation route of N20 Croom Bypass, Croom td., Co. Limerick. Licence no. 97E0400. Unpublished report submitted to the National Monuments Service, Department of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, Dublin.

Fitzpatrick, M. 2000 Croom, Enclosure. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1999: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 164-5, No. 499. Bray. Wordwell.

Breen, T. C. 1998 Croom, Site 7; Enclosure. In I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 1997: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 113, No. 336. Bray, Wordwell.

Fitzpatrick, M. 1999 Report on the archaeological excavations at Croom, County Limerick. Licence no. 97E0400 ext. Unpublished report submitted to the National Monuments Service, Department of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, Dublin.