What is recorded here

Dunbyrne holds a vast nine-metre-wide earthen ring where cattle still trample the ancient bank. The fortress overlooks a deep bog, suggesting its builders valued the view as much as defence. A modern pond now occupies part of the outer ditch, transforming a military boundary into a quiet water feature. The scale remains striking even after centuries of farm activity and natural decay.

Near the bottom of a long, gentle, S-facing pasture slope overlooking a large tract of bog to the SE. A fairly poorly preserved, large, roughly circular area (int. diam. c. 90m) is defined by a very substantial inner earthen bank (Wth 8m; int. H 1.4m; ext. H 3.8m) SE-SW-NW, the broad upper surface of which (Wth 4m) is heavily poached by livestock, and which has been reduced to a scarp at SE (H 1.8m), and by a wide, flat-bottomed outer fosse (Wth3.7m; D 1.8m) SE-NW through which a stream flows to feed a modern pond which has been dug out of the fosse at S. A gap (Wth 10m) in the bank at WSW appears to be modern. The enclosing elements are removed along the N where extensive farm buildings shown on the 1st. ed. (1838) of the OS 6-inch map, have since been levelled, while the E limits of the site are defined by a low, modern earthen bank (Wth 1.1; H 0.6m). Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 10 June 2011

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