
What is recorded here
Bohola is a castle motte in County Mayo, Ireland, where a broad ramp once invited travelers across its eastern edge before modern digging erased the path. The circular platform still rises above damp pasture, offering clear views across rolling green fields while a hidden church and graveyard wait forty metres south. Its steep scarps and broken banks suggest human hands shaped the land, even though time and quarrying have blurred the exact boundaries of that ancient work.
In pasture, located on a prominent elevation merging with gently rising ground at W. There is a steep slope at N, E and S, dropping to wet, rush-grown ground. It overlooks a valley of lowlying, damp pasture, with a stream 75m to E, and there are excellent views in the middle distance over the surrounding landscape of rolling pasture.
Substantially raised, roughly circular platform (34.3m N−S; 33.2m E−W) defined by a scarp (H 2m at W, 3.7m at N, 2-3m at S), outside which it is enclosed at SW−NW by a broad, flat-based fosse (Wth 5-5.8m) with an external bank (Wth 4.5m; int. H 0.8m; ext. H 0.5-0.8m).
The platform scarp is high and steep and remains well defined at SW−NE, but has suffered disturbance in the modern era.
The fosse and external bank cut across the rising ground on the W side of the motte; they cannot be traced on the N or E side. At SE−SW the platform scarp drops to a terrace or berm-like feature (Wth 3.5m), which may be the form the fosse took on this side, however there has been quarrying/disturbance here and its original form is unclear.
The top/interior of the platform is slightly raised in the centre and NE, but the entire area has an uneven surface of humps and hollows as a result of disturbance in the past. A low, linear sod-covered rise (Wth 1-1.5m; H 0.2m), from which small stones protrude, traverses the platform on a NNE−SSW axis to E of centre –possibly the remnants of a wall, but it does not appear to define a structure or building.
Knox (1911, 303) noted a broad ramp-like entrance feature on the E side. This appears to have been largely dug away. The ground surrounding the motte at E and S has a very uneven surface due to disturbance/quarrying in the modern era.
Bohola church (MA071-077001-) and graveyard (MA071-077002-) are located 40m to S.
Attached images:
MA071-076----_01.JPG Viewed from SE
MA071-076----_02.JPG Viewed from NE
Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy
Date of upload: 13 August 2021
The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.
- What survives
- Recorded monument
Places near here
Bohola ChurchChurch · 114 yd
Enclosure in BoholaEnclosure · 262 yd
The Bungalowhouse · 728 yd
Castle in ruinsCastle, tower house · 827 yd
LismoreFairy fort / earthen ringfort · 1.6 mi
Shonagawna Castle in RuinsCastle, unclassified · 2.3 mi
Michael DavittMemorial · 2.7 mi
Thorn CaveCave · 3.7 mi
I'll Send You The FareMemorial · 4.9 mi
Kiltimagh MuseumMuseum · 5.1 mi
Hennigan's Heritage CentreHeritage attraction · 5.7 mi
HawthornHawthorn · 5.9 miOther information
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