Field system

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in relatively low-lying, rough, wet pasture. Monument described in 1971 as an ancient field system which pre-dates the modern field system. It is located in the existing fields where house sites (WM025-111002-/-111003-), ringfort (WM025-112----) and enclosures (WM025-113---- and WM025-114----) are located. It appears to extend into the modern fields to the immediate N and to the S of these monuments and may have extended further into fields to E and W which are now ploughed. The ancient system consists of straight, curvilinear and irregular banks, scarps and fosses forming roughly circular, oval and irregular field enclosures. It is clearly older than the modern system which consists primarily of long, straight, linear boundaries of a more substantial form. These small irregular fields which are depicted on the 1837 OS 6-inch map, the revised 1913 ed. OS 25-inch map and the current edition OS 6-inch map are not typical of modern fields and are clearly part of an older system.
This ancient field system lies c. 165m to SE of St Maol Tuile (St Multilly’s) holy well and c. 290m to S of ecclesiastical remains consisting of high cross (WM025-110005-) and the medieval parish church (WM025-110002-) & graveyard (WM025-110004-) of Dysert which are situated on the site of an Early Christian monastery which was founded here in the 8th or 9th century by St Maol Tuile. The ancient field system extends quite close to the old earthworks surrounding the Dysart graveyard and more detailed investigation may reveal that they are contemporaneous. The ringfort, two earthworks and two house sites which are incorporated into this field system appear to represent the remains of a possible deserted medieval settlement (WM025-111004-).

See attached map annotated by the ASI

Compiled by Alison McQueen, Vera Rahilly and Caimin O’Brien.

Date of upload: 23 September 2019