Lismalour, Drumneen, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Enclosures
In the townland of Drumneen, in County Mayo, lies a recorded archaeological monument that has yet to give up much of its story.
Lismalour appears on the archaeological record as a named site, which is itself a small puzzle. Townland names beginning with "Lis" typically derive from the Irish word "lios", referring to a ringfort, the circular earthen enclosures that served as farmsteads and homesteads across Ireland from the early medieval period onwards. Whether that etymology holds true here, and what physically survives at this location, remains difficult to establish from the record currently available.
Mayo is a county with extraordinary archaeological density, from megalithic field systems beneath the blanket bog at Céide Fields to the scatter of ringforts, cashels, and souterrains, underground stone-lined passages often associated with early medieval settlement, that punctuate the landscape. A site named Lismalour would fit naturally into that broader pattern of early medieval rural life, when small farming communities enclosed their dwellings within earthen banks and ditches, as much for managing livestock as for any defensive purpose. But without more detailed documentation, the specifics of this site, its dimensions, its condition, its date, remain unconfirmed.