Field system, Ardmayle, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field system, Ardmayle, Co. Tipperary

Around an old tower house in Ardmayle, County Tipperary, the ground tells a slightly confusing story.

A scatter of earthworks fans out to the north, east, and south of the structure, and at first glance they might suggest the buried remains of a medieval settlement clustering around the tower. On closer inspection, though, they resist that reading. No coherent pattern of medieval occupation emerges from them, and the working interpretation is that most of what survives relates to later field boundaries and the ordinary business of farming.

The most legible features sit to the south-east of the tower house, where a roughly L-shaped arrangement of earthen banks survives on the gentle west-facing slope. One bank runs some 55 metres to the south-east, and a second, approximately 30 metres long, branches off to run north-east to south-west. Nearby, a patch of disturbed ground measuring around 31 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west is thought to be a filled-in quarry, with mounds of what appears to be upcast material still visible. To the west of the tower house, a raised trackway sits just 0.32 metres above the surrounding ground level, running along the inside of a field boundary wall; this too is considered a later farm feature rather than anything medieval. A further earthen bank about 100 metres to the south-west was recorded as a field boundary on the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map, which dates from the mid-nineteenth century, and roughly 20 metres to the north-east there is another area of disturbed ground thought to be connected with a former water trough. The nearby Ardmayle church and graveyard lie approximately 100 metres to the west, adding a further layer to a landscape that has clearly been worked, modified, and reinterpreted across several centuries.

What makes this corner of Tipperary quietly interesting is precisely the ambiguity. The earthworks looked, at some point, significant enough to record carefully, and yet they turn out to be the accumulated traces of later agricultural life rather than a legible medieval landscape. The tower house itself anchors the scene, but the ground around it reflects generations of more mundane activity, boundaries shifted, quarry pits filled in, trackways raised just enough to stay dry.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Field system, Ardmayle, Co. Tipperary. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement