Embanked enclosure, Lissian, Co. Roscommon

Co. Roscommon |

Ringforts

Embanked enclosure, Lissian, Co. Roscommon

On a north-facing slope in County Roscommon, a circular earthwork sits quietly on an east-west ridge, its southern third swallowed by scrub and overgrowth.

What makes it quietly puzzling is that, despite its considerable complexity, nobody has yet identified where you were supposed to go in. No visible entrance survives anywhere around its circumference, which at its fullest extent measures roughly 79 metres north to south and 77 metres east to west.

The enclosure is not simply a single bank thrown up around a patch of ground. It is a layered construction: a grass-covered interior roughly 44 metres across is ringed by an earthen bank, then a fosse, then a second bank, then a further fosse, and finally a third outer bank curving from the north-east around to the south-west. A fosse, to borrow the older term, is essentially a ditch, usually dug to provide the material for the bank beside it and to reinforce whatever boundary or defensive effect that bank was meant to create. The dimensions here are substantial. The inner fosse alone is between 7.3 and 7.7 metres wide at the top and between 0.9 and 1.8 metres deep externally, figures that suggest a serious investment of labour at some point in the past, even if the interior bank has been worn down to as little as ten centimetres above the surrounding ground in places. About 220 metres to the east, along the same ridge, sits a rath, the common Irish ringfort type usually associated with early medieval settlement and farming, and the proximity of the two monuments raises questions about whether they were related in use or in time, though no firm answer is currently available.

The southern portion of the site is heavily overgrown, which obscures some of the defining features and makes reading the full circuit of banks and ditches difficult on the ground. The northern arc, on the slope facing away from the ridge crest, preserves the clearest profile of the earthworks.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Embanked enclosure, Lissian, Co. Roscommon. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement