Lisdrumdoagh fort, Lisdrumdoagh, Co. Monaghan

Co. Monaghan |

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Lisdrumdoagh fort, Lisdrumdoagh, Co. Monaghan

On the crest of a drumlin in County Monaghan, a large earthwork once curved around the hilltop in a near-complete ring.

Drumlins, those elongated oval hills formed from glacial debris, are a defining feature of the Monaghan landscape, and it was on one such rise that this enclosure sat, its raised grass-covered interior measuring roughly 105 metres east to west and 85 metres north to south. The earthen bank that defined it was substantial enough on its northern side to stand over two metres high on the exterior, though only about thirty centimetres above the interior ground level, suggesting the enclosure relied as much on its elevated position as on the bank itself for whatever prominence or protection it once offered.

The site has a cartographic history stretching back at least to 1793, when it was recorded on McCrea's map of County Monaghan. By 1834, the first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map was marking it in gothic lettering as a fort, the convention used to denote ancient monuments, and the curving field banks that traced its perimeter were clearly visible. The 1907 revision of the same map recorded it again, this time as a hachured feature, the standard cartographic shorthand for an earthen enclosure. That two centuries of mapping consistently acknowledged the site speaks to how legible it remained in the landscape. In 1983, however, the perimeter from the north-west around through the east and south-east was removed, and the interior was levelled, leaving the enclosure substantially altered. What survives is a partial earthen bank and hedge on the northern arc, a fragment of what was once a large and coherent monument.

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