Barrow (Ring Barrow), Moanfin, Co. Tipperary

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Barrows

Barrow (Ring Barrow), Moanfin, Co. Tipperary

A road cuts clean through the southern arc of this ancient burial monument at Moanfin, in County Tipperary, leaving what was once a complete ring barrow truncated and slightly lopsided.

A ring barrow is a prehistoric funerary earthwork, typically comprising a low central mound or hollow enclosed by a circular bank and ditch, and this one sits quietly in pasture at the base of a south-west-facing slope, its purpose ancient and its setting entirely ordinary. When Ordnance Survey revisers mapped the area in 1954 and 1955, they recorded it simply as an irregular hollow, giving little indication of the structured monument that lay beneath that description.

The earthwork measures roughly 33.5 metres across its east-west axis and retains a clear internal scarp rising to just over a metre, with a surrounding fosse, or ditch, that is 7.5 metres wide and more than a metre deep. Beyond that sits an outer earthen bank, lower and narrower, completing the concentric arrangement that defines this monument type. A causeway survives in the north-east quadrant, which may mark an original entrance point into the enclosed interior. Old field banks press up against the north-west sector, reflecting centuries of agricultural activity working around and over the site. The monument has not fared entirely well: uprooted trees and cattle movement across the ground have caused visible damage, and the road that clips the southern portion is a permanent loss to the circuit's original form.

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Pete F
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