Barrow (Ring Barrow), Ballynamrossagh, Co. Tipperary

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Barrows

Barrow (Ring Barrow), Ballynamrossagh, Co. Tipperary

In a field at Ballynamrossagh in County Tipperary, a shallow circular depression in the ground marks something far older than it looks.

Roughly four metres across, grass-covered and level at its centre, it could easily be mistaken for a natural hollow. What sets it apart is its structure: a fosse, essentially a cut ditch, traces its perimeter, and a crescent-shaped berm, a low earthen bank, curves around its northern, eastern, and southern edges with a second outer fosse following that. This is a ring barrow, a type of prehistoric funerary monument in which the buried remains of the dead were enclosed within a defined circular boundary, the ditches and banks serving both as markers and as a kind of ritual separation between the living world and whatever lay interred at the centre.

The dimensions here are modest. The sunken interior measures approximately four metres north to south and just under four metres east to west. The outer bank barely rises above the surrounding ground, reaching only about ten centimetres on its interior face and five on its exterior, and the ditches are shallow, between ten and twenty centimetres deep. None of this diminishes the site's significance; ring barrows of this kind were not engineered for height or spectacle but for purpose, and their survival in any form across centuries of farming and land use is itself notable. The barrow sits off-centre to the north within a broader enclosure, suggesting it was not the only feature of significance in this landscape and that the two elements may have been contemporary or at least considered related by those who used the land.

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Pete F
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