What is recorded here

Hachured is a low, oval scar on the edge of a SSW-facing slope in County Limerick, its interior still choked with rushes and shadowed by Cullaun Mountain a kilometre north. The earth rises only twenty centimetres along most of its rim, yet that thin band excludes the wind and marks the shape of hands long gone. It is not a fort in the local memory, nor a clear barrow in the survey, but a place where water gathered and life shaped itself around the difference.

On level poorly drained ground in upland area, on the edge of a SSW-facing slope, with panoramic views from E-S-W-NW. Summit of Cullaun Mountain 1km to N. A possible pond barrow (LI008-004----) or quarry hole lies c. 35m to SW. Depicted on the 1840 ed. OSi 6-inch map as a circular shaped enclosure standing immediately S of the townland boundary with Gannavane Upper. Shown on the OSi 25-inch map as a suboval-shaped area defined by a fosse intersected at N by the townland boundary running E-W. Monument surveyed by the ASI in 1999 and described as a slightly raised subcircular-shaped area (31m E-W; 28m N-S) defined by a scarp (H 0.2m; Wth 1.1m) from NW-N-E-S-W-WNW. The scarp is absent from WNW-NW and may represent an entrance feature. The interior is generally level. A relic field boundary running E-W extends from the exterior at SSE. This is a very low profile monument and is not known locally as a fort. Visible as roughly oval-shaped area enclosed by a green band of differential growth on Digital Globe orthophotos taken 2011-13 and Google Earth orthoimage taken 18/11/2018. The interior is covered in rushes suggesting a poorly drained pond-like interior which could be the remains of a barrow rather than that of a ringfort. Compiled by: Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly Date of upload: 3 July 2020

A possible Neolithic or Bronze Age pond barrow or quarry hole; its significance is not clearly established but may relate to ritual or land use in the upland landscape.

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