Mound, Rathmore South, Co. Limerick

Co. Limerick |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Mound, Rathmore South, Co. Limerick

In a field in Rathmore South, County Limerick, there is a low oblong mound that may or may not still be there, depending on when you look.

Aerial imagery captured between 2005 and 2013 shows it clearly enough, an elongated rise in the pasture running roughly north to south. But a Google Earth image taken in February 2020 shows nothing at all. Whether this is a matter of seasonal grass growth, subtle earthwork erosion, or simply the angle and quality of the photograph is unclear. The mound itself is modest by any measure, less than a metre high, and sits quietly in farmland without any surrounding ditch or fosse to define it.

The feature was recorded by O'Kelly in 1944, who described it as an elongated tumulus, a term used for a burial mound of uncertain date and origin, often prehistoric, though the word carries no precise chronological meaning on its own. At that time, O'Kelly noted dimensions of roughly ten metres in length and four and a half metres across, with the long axis oriented north to south. The Cassini six-inch map, a nineteenth-century survey series that remains one of the most detailed historical cartographic records of the Irish countryside, depicted the mound as roughly oval, measuring approximately twenty metres by eighteen metres, suggesting it may have been somewhat larger or less eroded in earlier centuries. Local tradition, for whatever weight that carries, holds that it is a burial ground. About a hundred metres to the northeast lies Rathmore Castle, and the mound sits forty-five metres west of the townland boundary separating Rathmore South from Rathmore North.

Access is across private farmland, and the mound sits twelve metres south of a field boundary in open pasture, so any visit would require permission from the landowner. There are no facilities, no signage, and no obvious approach path. The surrounding landscape is ordinary agricultural ground, and without prior knowledge of the site's location and dimensions, the rise in the turf could easily be mistaken for natural unevenness in the field. Given that it was invisible from satellite imagery as recently as 2020, a visit in summer, when vegetation is fuller, may render it even harder to distinguish. It is the sort of place that rewards patience and a good map rather than a casual glance from a field gate.

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Pete F
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