Ring-ditch, Tulla, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Ring-ditch, Tulla, Co. Tipperary

Beneath the improved pasture outside Tulla in County Tipperary, a circular earthwork sits in complete invisibility.

Standing in the field, there is nothing to see: no raised bank, no hollow, no break in the grass to suggest that anything lies beneath. The feature only becomes legible from the air, where an aerial photograph reveals a circular crop or soil mark roughly eight metres in diameter, the faint signature of a ring-ditch that the ground itself refuses to betray.

Ring-ditches are the eroded remnants of prehistoric funerary or ceremonial monuments, typically the filled-in circular trenches that once defined a barrow or enclosed a burial mound. Over centuries of cultivation and grazing, the upstanding elements can be entirely ploughed or worn away, leaving only the ditch itself as a subsurface feature. Soil within a former ditch tends to retain more moisture and organic material than the surrounding ground, which is why differences in crop growth or soil colour can still trace the outline from altitude long after every surface trace has vanished. What makes the Tulla example quietly notable is its company: two further ring-ditches lie within roughly twenty metres, one to the south-east and one to the east, suggesting a small cluster of related monuments in this corner of Tipperary. None of them appear on any edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, meaning they escaped the attention of nineteenth-century surveyors entirely and entered the record only through later aerial reconnaissance.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Ring-ditch, Tulla, Co. Tipperary. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement