What is recorded here

King John’s own liberty still breathes in Brownstown, where a semi-circular mound waits beside an ordinary farmyard. Earth moved around it until memory blurred its edges, yet the castle drawn in the Down Survey still shadows the soil. Johnswell Road passes the place now, carrying drivers past a lost chamber that may have worn a crown before it became a field.

According to Doyle (1981) in a study of raths in the vicinity of Kilkenny City, in, 'Lower Brownstown (near Johnswell Road at Kingsland) Beside a farmyard, there is what tradition says is a rath. Very likely it is a rath but its height has been very much increased by the movement of earth away from it, and it seems that its top was levelled. It is now a semi-circular mound, about twenty yards [c. 18m] in width. So much work has been done around it that it is difficult to say what its original shape was. Apart from being rather small it differs in other ways from the raths already mentioned. It is not on a hill, it is on gently sloping ground, and is near a stream. The farmland around it is quite good'. O'Kelly (1969, 90) doesn't mention any rath in Brownstown townland. The Down Survey (1655-6) barony map of ‘The Liberties of the Citty of Kilkenny’ shows a castle (KK019-063----) depicted on a mound located in what is now the southern portion of Brownstown townland (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin). It is possible that the feature noted by Doyle is the site of this castle. The precise location of this monument is unknown. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 12 October 2020

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