Ringfort - rath

The National Monuments Service's description

Located at the summit of a NNW-SSE drumlin ridge. This rath is represented on McCrea’s Map of County Monaghan (1793). A large D-shaped embanked enclosure (ext. dim. c. 50m NW-SE) is also depicted here on the 1834 edition of the OS 6-inch map where it is described in gothic lettering as a ‘fort’, but there is a gravel pit in the interior and the monument is truncated at NE by a NW-SE road. By the 1907 edition a NE-SW field bank had reduced it further to a small quadrant SE of this feature, which was all that was extant in 1968 when it was described as a D-shaped grass-covered area (dims 20m NE-SW; 10.5m NW-SE) defined by an earthen bank (at ESE: Wth of base 3.6m; Wth of top 1.2m; int. H 0.3m; ext. H 1.8m) with no visible fosse E-WSW. Even this had been removed by 1995 (OSAP).

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Monaghan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Revised by: Michael Moore

Date of revision: 22 June 2018

References

McCrea, W. 1793 A map of the county of Monaghan. National Library of Ireland, Manuscripts 16.1.10 (1-4).

OSAP - Ordnance Survey Aerial Photographs. Photographic collection. Ordnance Survey of Ireland. Dublin.