Moated site, Tomnafunshoge, Co. Wexford

This rectangular earthwork, measuring roughly 60 metres on each side, appeared on both the 1839 and 1940 Ordnance Survey maps as a distinctive embanked enclosure. The site consisted of a raised rectangular platform about 27 by 26 metres, surrounded by a flat-bottomed moat that was 3.5 metres wide and dropped between 1.5 and 2 metres below the interior level. Beyond the moat, an outer bank called a counterscarp provided additional definition to this medieval fortification.

These moated sites were typically built between the 13th and 14th centuries, often serving as defended farmsteads for Anglo-Norman settlers or prosperous Irish families. The raised platform would have supported timber buildings, whilst the water-filled moat offered both defence and a ready source of fish. The Tomnafunshoge example fits the classic pattern of these rural strongholds that dotted the Irish countryside during the medieval period.

Unfortunately, modern agriculture has erased most visible traces of this historic site. What was clearly documented in the 1940s has since been ploughed flat, leaving no surface evidence in the harvested cereal fields. However, the past refuses to disappear entirely; aerial photographs taken by the Ordnance Survey Ireland in 2005 still reveal faint cropmarks where the moat once ran, a ghostly outline visible only from above when conditions are just right.