What is recorded here

Castle, motte in Peafield stands midway along a north-south gravel ridge in County Laois, its oval top thirty yards long and twenty-two feet above the cutting fosse. Monsignor Tyan described the ancient rath to the National Museum of Ireland in 1930, noting modern trees on the embankments and a level surface wide enough for the whole ridge. The castle may have watched the valley, stored grain or sheltered people before memory faded, but the earth still holds the shape of that forgotten use.

Correspondence in 1930 between Monsignor Tyan and the National Museum of Ireland in which the Monsignor describes the following 'Upon the lands of Mr. Michael Tynan of Peafield House, Coolrain, Mountrath Leix there is a gravel ridge running north south. About midway along the ridge there is a rath of very great antiquity, it is on the Top an oval shape about 30 yards long 23 wide and about 22 ft. high from the fosse that runs around it. It oval shape appears to rise from the rath running lenghtwise along the ridge - the width is all the width of the ridge would allow - the fosse cuts right across the ridge with embankments on both slopes of the ridge and it is planted with trees of modern growth and is quite level on the top' (NMI Correspondence file 1930). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 17 December 2007

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.