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Castle

Castle, motte and bailey

What is recorded here

Castle rises at the end of a long ridge in Priest Town, its flat-topped earthen mound still standing beside a possible bailey and faint ditch. Trees later circled the top and modern cutting scarred its west face, yet the shape remains clear enough to imagine people watching the valley below. What is preserved is not a grand hall but a lived edge of the landscape, where earth, water and memory still meet.
Situated at the end of a long natural ridge with a stream and valley to its W and consisting of a flat-topped earthen mound (max. diam. at top 15.7m, at base 26.5m, H c. 3-5m) with traces of a wide fosse (Wth 3.7m at base, 6m at rim, D 0.4m) from E to W. The site was subsequently used as a tree-ring and there is evidence of modern scarping of the W face of the motte. A possible bailey (dims c. 21m N-S, c. 40m E-W) at the S is defined by a sharp drop in level and scarping of the W and S sides and by a shallow ditch at the E. The above description is derived from both the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986) and the 'Archaeological Survey of County Louth' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1991). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 17 July 2007

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What survives
Recorded monument

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