Earthwork, Clogher East, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ritual/Ceremonial
In a quiet pasture in Clogher East, County Limerick, a low circular rise in the ground has been sitting largely unnoticed for centuries, its outline surviving in the soil long after whatever structure it once supported has disappeared.
It is the kind of feature that most walkers would step across without registering, yet aerial photography and successive Ordnance Survey maps confirm that this is a genuine early monument, its form still legible from above even if its purpose remains unspecified in the historical record.
The earthwork was first formally recorded on the Ordnance Survey Ireland six-inch map of 1840, where it appears as a circular-shaped feature. By the time the more detailed 25-inch edition was produced in 1897, surveyors were able to record more precisely what was visible on the ground: a raised, roughly circular area measuring approximately 29 metres on its north-west to south-east axis and 27 metres north-east to south-west, defined by a scarp, which is essentially a sharp slope marking the edge of the raised platform. A fosse, meaning a surrounding ditch, is also detectable from the north and north-west sides, giving the site the characteristic profile of a ringfort or similar enclosed settlement from early medieval Ireland. Ringforts, known in Irish as raths or lios, were typically used as farmsteads and domestic enclosures, and thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation. This example sits approximately 140 metres north-east of a separate recorded enclosure, suggesting the wider landscape here was once more densely occupied than it appears today. The record was compiled by Martin Fitzpatrick and uploaded to the national monuments database in May 2021, drawing on aerial photographs including an ASI survey from September 2002 and orthophotos taken between 2005 and 2012.
The earthwork lies in ordinary farmland and there is no formal public access or signage. The clearest view of the monument's shape comes not from ground level but from aerial imagery; on Google Earth, a September 2020 orthoimage shows the feature sitting clearly to the north of an east-west field boundary. Anyone visiting the general area should note that approaching earthworks in active pasture always requires landowner permission. The slight elevation of the platform and the trace of the surrounding fosse are most readable after rainfall, when differences in ground moisture can emphasise the underlying archaeology.