Ringfort - rath

The National Monuments Service's description

In pasture on glebe lands, 50m N of watercourse that forms townland boundary with Flemingstown and 460m W of Flemingstown House. Ballingaddy church (LI048-026001-) and graveyard (LI048-026002- ) lies 250m to the NW. Depicted on the 1840 ed. OSi 6-inch map as an oval shaped platform defined by a scarp, intersected at NE, E and W by post-1700 field boundaries. Shown on the 1897 ed. OSi 25-inch map as a sub-circular shaped platform (dims. c. 69m NW-SE; 60m NE-SW) defined by a bank incorporated into a post-1700 field boundary running N-S from SW-W-NW reduced to a scarp elsehwhere. Described by Westropp (1916-17, 476) as consisting of ‘a steep-sided fort, terraced up 10 feet [3m] over the field to the south and south-east, but only 5 feet [1.5m] to north. It is 123 feet [37.5] across the ring, which was 12 feet thick [3.6m]. The stone facing is entirely removed, and there is no trace of a fosse.’ In 1840 the Ordnance Survey recorded this monument as ‘Ballingaddy Moat in the Glebe of Ballingaddy N.’, one of ‘a few ancient forts’ in the townland’ (OSNB Abbeyfeale to Bruree, 146, 156). Monument visible as a large circular-shaped area enclosed by a partially tree-lined bank, on Digital Globe orthoimage taken between 2005-12 and on Google Earth orthoimages. Cultivation ridges are visible running across interior of enclosure on oblique aerial photograph (ASIAP) taken 05/01/2003.

See attached oblique aerial photograph (ASIAP) taken 05/01/2003 and Google Earth orthoimages.

Compiled by: Fiona Rooney

Date of upload: 12 August 2021

References

Westropp, T.J. 1916-17 On certain typical earthworks and ring walls in Co. Limerick. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 33C, 9-42, 444-92.

OSNB - Ordnance Survey Name Books. Pro-forma books arranged by Civil Parish for recording townland and other name-forms and compiled in the course of the OS 6-inch survey 1824-1841. The name books also include minor names and incidental references to antiquities. National Archives of Ireland.

ASIAP - Archaeological Survey of Ireland Aerial Photographs (c. 1996 - c. 2010).