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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - motte and bailey

Rathkennan, County Tipperary South, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - motte and bailey, Rathkennan, County Tipperary South, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Rathkennan
County
Tipperary South
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Hachured
Latest-edition OS map
Rathkennan
Coordinates
52.62783, -7.91297
SMR number
TS046-027001-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1904 · Sheet 13. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

On top of a natural hilloock in unudulating countryside with good extensive views in all directions. A church (TS046-026----) lies c. 70m to the N. A low flat-topped mound (H 3m; top diam 6m N-S; base diam. 9m N-S) with rectangular bailey to the S defined by a wide flat-topped earth and stone bank (top Wth 3m; base Wth 6.5m; int. H 0.5m; ext. H 1.7m) with a possible entrance gap (Wth 4m) at the E. A low earthen bank runs onto the SE angle of the bailey which may be an earlier field boundary or access onto the monument. The mound has been quarried into at the NW sector while the interior of the bailey along the whole W side has been quarried out from N to S. It is depicted as a circular bailey on the OS 6-inch map, however, the quarry located in the W sector gives the appearnce of a rectangular bailey. A modern roadway intersects the perimeter of the monument at the N on an E-W axis. In the Civil Survey (1654-6) there is a reference to the 'street of Rathkienane', while Smyth (1985, 123) alludes to a reference to a castle and church which may have been depicted on the Down Survey maps for the area. The Strafford Survey of 1637 (NLI 16.1.17 (13)) depicts a castle at Rathkenan which may be a reference to the motte and bailey.
Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 26 August 2011

References

Smyth, W. 1985 Property, patronage and population - reconstructing the human geography of mid-seventeenth century County Tipperary. In W. Nolan (ed.), Tipperary: history and society, 104-38. Dublin. Geography Publications.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Castle - motte and bailey in Tipperary South All County Tipperary South records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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