Fort, Figullar, Co. Monaghan
Co. Monaghan |
Ringforts
On the crest of a south-facing drumlin slope in Figullar, County Monaghan, an oval earthwork sits quietly in the grass, its outline still legible after what may be many centuries of agricultural encroachment.
Drumlins, the smooth elongated hills that were shaped by glacial movement and that give this part of Ulster its distinctive rolling character, were frequently chosen for enclosures of this kind, the elevated ground offering both visibility and a natural sense of separation from the surrounding landscape.
The earthwork measures roughly 38 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and 32 metres across, making it a modest but coherent example of a ringfort, the type of circular or oval enclosure, typically defended by one or more earthen banks and ditches, that served as a farmstead or high-status residence across Ireland from roughly the early medieval period onward. Here the defining feature is an earthen bank running from west-southwest around the north to east-northeast, with an external fosse, meaning a ditch, and traces of a further outer bank to the northwest and east. The inner bank has been absorbed into a later field boundary, and the fosse has been deliberately deepened along its southern and western stretches, suggesting the land has been actively managed around and through the monument over a long period. A northeast to southwest field bank clips the southeastern edge of the enclosure, compressing it slightly. Two entrance gaps survive, one on the south at around 2.2 metres wide, and a wider one on the east at 3.4 metres, which is considered the more likely original point of entry into the enclosure.