Fort, Lismenan, Co. Monaghan

Co. Monaghan |

Ringforts

Fort, Lismenan, Co. Monaghan

On the summit of a drumlin in Lismenan, a neat circle of coniferous trees marks the outline of an ancient fort, though the trees have long since taken ownership of whatever ritual or defensive purpose the enclosure once served.

Drumlins, those smooth elongated hills shaped by retreating glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age, were frequently chosen as sites for ringforts and similar earthworks across Ulster, their natural elevation lending both visibility and a degree of protection to whoever occupied the ground above.

The enclosure measures roughly 25.5 metres east to west and 25 metres north to south, making it a modest but clearly deliberate construction. What survives is a scarp, essentially a cut or shaped slope in the earth rather than a built-up bank, running around the perimeter and varying in height from around 0.85 metres on the eastern side to 1.6 metres on the north. No fosse, the diagnostic outer ditch that typically accompanies ringfort earthworks, is visible at ground level, and no original entrance can be identified. The absence of these features makes it difficult to date or classify the site with confidence; what remains is an outline, a geometry imposed on a hilltop at some point in the past, its builders and purpose unrecorded.

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Pete F
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