Fort, Tiromedan, Co. Monaghan

Co. Monaghan |

Ringforts

Fort, Tiromedan, Co. Monaghan

On the highest point of a drumlin ridge in Tiromedan, County Monaghan, a grass-covered circle sits quietly in the landscape, its earthen bank still readable after what may be well over a thousand years.

The site belongs to a category known as a ringfort, the most common monument type in Ireland, though familiarity with the type does not make individual examples any less peculiar to stumble across. What is slightly unusual here is the absence of a fosse, the external ditch that typically accompanies the bank in such enclosures, giving the surviving earthwork a somewhat understated profile from the outside despite an external bank height of 1.7 metres on the north-west side.

The enclosure measures roughly 31.5 metres across and is defined by an earthen bank and hedge, with a single entrance just under two and a half metres wide facing the ENE. Inside, the circular space has been divided by a later field bank running north-west to south-east, a modification that speaks to centuries of agricultural repurposing. More intriguing is what lies to the south-west of that field bank: the low, barely-visible foundations of a subrectangular house structure, measuring roughly five metres by four metres internally, with what appears to be its own entrance also oriented to the ENE. Whether this structure is contemporary with the ringfort itself or represents a later use of the sheltered interior is not clear from what survives at ground level, but its alignment with the main entrance suggests at least a deliberate relationship between the two.

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Pete F
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