What is recorded here

Castle Ffrench, ballyvoneen is a broken ring of earth in Galway grassland, still wide enough to hold a whole town in memory. The road cut through it and took the west side, but the east bank remains high beside a deep pit, as if the ground kept one wall of the place it lost. A private burial ground lies on the southeast bank now, dead and living share the same ridge. Whatever the enclosure was, it was large enough to matter and strong enough to resist forgetting.

In gently undulating grassland. Poorly preserved irregular enclosure (E-W >116m, N-S 115m) defined by an inner bank, intervening fosse and outer bank. The monument is cut from N to S by the Ahascragh-Ballygar road and no visible surface trace survives to W of it. The inner bank survives from N through E to SSE and is best preserved from ESE to SSE: a large pit lies immediately outside it in this sector. The fosse and outer bank survive from N to NE. There are a number of low banks in the interior, possibly representing internal divisions, and a modern field wall cuts through S half on a SE-SW axis. A private burial ground (GA047-017002-) overlies the inner bank at SE. This monument also extends on to OS sheet 46 (GA046-033----). The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

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