Barrow, Knocknacrohy, Co. Limerick

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Barrow, Knocknacrohy, Co. Limerick

A prehistoric burial monument that has managed to elude every satellite camera and mapping survey thrown at it is a curious thing.

This ring-barrow, a low circular earthwork of the kind used for burial during the Bronze Age, sits on sloping pasture in the townland of Knocknacrohy in County Limerick, and yet it has never shown up on Ordnance Survey Ireland maps, nor on aerial orthoimages captured between 2005 and 2013, nor on Google Earth imagery as recently as November 2018. The only record that brought it to official attention at all was a single frame from an aerial photographic survey carried out over Bruff in 1986, catalogued as Bruff AP 4/3681.

That 1986 survey identified the site as a ring-barrow, and it was subsequently recorded in the national Sites and Monuments Record. It sits roughly 14 metres south-west of the townland boundary with Glen, in the barony of Clanwilliam, and is one of a closely spaced pair, its companion lying just 15 metres away. A further cluster of four ring-barrows occupies ground about 80 metres to the south, making this corner of the slope something of a quiet concentration of funerary monuments. Knockseefin Hill rises around 900 metres to the north-east. The record was compiled by Edmond O'Donovan and uploaded to the national database in September 2020.

Because the site does not register on standard satellite or mapping tools, a visitor relying on Google Maps or the OSi viewer is unlikely to find any trace of it on screen. The pasture here is actively farmed, and the earthwork, if it survives at ground level at all, would present as a low, grass-covered ring, subtle enough to be easily overlooked underfoot. The broader landscape context is worth bearing in mind: the cluster of ring-barrows to the south suggests this hillside was a meaningful place in the prehistoric period, and the paired arrangement of the two closest monuments adds a further layer of interest for anyone willing to read the ground carefully.

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Pete F
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