Settlement deserted - medieval, Moonhall, Co. Kilkenny

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Settlement deserted – medieval, Moonhall, Co. Kilkenny

At Moonhall in County Kilkenny, a medieval community has been so thoroughly absorbed back into the landscape that what remains is little more than a series of low grassy humps in a marsh-bound field.

The settlement clusters around a castle on an east-facing slope, hemmed in on all sides by streams and fed by a well to the south-west that has long been known locally as Castle Well. A ruined footbridge once allowed crossing of the southern stream; that it existed at all suggests the place was connected to a wider network of movement, however modest.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1839 recorded a substantial area called Castle Field, showing a castle in its eastern portion surrounded by a complex of enclosures of varying sizes. Those enclosures represent the outlines of a medieval settlement, the kind of small nucleated community, probably of a few households, that grew up in proximity to a local lord's fortified residence. Since 1839 the field has been divided by a north-south boundary. The western half, which once contained two large enclosures measuring roughly 100 by 90 metres and 110 by 85 metres, has been reclaimed and levelled, leaving traces visible only on satellite imagery. The eastern half has fared better. There, four rectangular enclosures survive at ground level, reduced to grassed-over footings of earth and stone but still traceable. The largest of these, immediately east of the castle, measures just over fourteen metres on each side. To its south-east, smaller enclosures step outward at right angles from one another, and four linear earthworks run downslope towards the stream, possibly the remnants of further enclosures that have not fully survived. Additional enclosures have been identified in the fields immediately to the south-east and south-west of the original Castle Field, suggesting the settlement extended beyond what the named field boundary once contained.

The site sits in genuine marshland, and the earthworks that remain are subtle, the kind that reward slow walking and a low afternoon light rather than a quick glance from a gate. The grassed-over wall-footings are easiest to read from slightly elevated ground, where the slight changes in relief begin to resolve into the outlines of rooms and yards.

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Pete F
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