Barrow (Ring Barrow), Ballycohy, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Barrows
A prehistoric burial mound that has lost part of its original outline to a modern field drain might not sound like a compelling sight, but the ring barrow at Ballycohy rewards a closer look precisely because of that tension between ancient intent and agricultural practicality.
What remains is a roughly D-shaped enclosure, measuring approximately 22 metres northeast to southwest and 16 metres northwest to southeast, sitting on level ground at the base of a gentle depression in undulating Tipperary pasture. A stream runs immediately to the north, and it is the stream's east-to-west course that defines one edge of the monument naturally, as it may well have done since the barrow was first constructed.
Ring barrows are a form of funerary monument found widely across Ireland and Britain, typically consisting of a central area enclosed by a bank and external ditch, built to mark a burial, though the interment itself may leave little visible trace. At Ballycohy, the enclosing elements survive in some detail on the northeast-to-southwest arc: an earthen scarp roughly 1.5 metres wide and 0.8 metres high, a flat-bottomed fosse or ditch some 2 metres wide at its base, and a low outer bank with an overall width of 5.3 metres. These are modest dimensions, but they speak to careful, deliberate construction. The southwestern section, however, has been cut away and the edge of the barrow straightened by a north-to-south field drain installed at some more recent point, leaving the monument with its characteristic D-shape rather than the circular or oval plan one would expect in its original form. The interior remains level and clear of overgrowth.
The site sits in ordinary farmland, its prehistoric origins easy to miss from a distance, particularly where the drain has softened the boundary into something that could pass for a natural feature of the ground. The surviving scarp, fosse, and outer bank on the curved arc give the clearest sense of what the monument once looked like in full, and it is that northeastern sweep that repays careful attention.