Fort, Tonyscallan, Co. Monaghan
Co. Monaghan |
Ringforts
On the upper slope of a drumlin in County Monaghan, a circular earthwork sits quietly above Tonyscallan Lough, also known as Dernaglug Lough, its grassy and scrub-covered interior tilting gently southeastward toward the water.
What makes it worth a second look is the asymmetry of its surviving bank: the inner face rises only about 0.4 metres above the enclosed ground, while the outer face climbs to 2.6 metres, a disproportion that speaks to the effort once invested in making this a genuinely defensive boundary rather than a simple enclosure marker.
The site is a ringfort, the most common class of early medieval monument in Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century and used as a farmstead enclosed against livestock theft and opportunistic raiding. Here the enclosing bank is substantial, measuring 4.4 metres across at its base on the north-northeast arc, and it is accompanied by an outer fosse, a ditch running around the exterior, which appears to have been re-cut at some point along its western to northern stretch. Much of the perimeter has since eroded to little more than a scarp, though stone facing survives in places. The entrance gap, 2.2 metres wide, faces west-northwest. Inside the enclosure, near the southwest of the bank, a long, narrow depression measuring 16 metres by 3.4 metres and roughly 1.3 metres deep is interpreted as a quarry from which material was dug to build the bank itself, with the spoil heaped on the inner edge beside it.
The drumlin setting is characteristic of this part of Monaghan, a landscape shaped by glacial deposition into rounded hills separated by lakes and wetland. Whoever built and occupied this fort chose their position carefully, with the lough visible below and the slope providing both drainage and a degree of natural elevation.