What is recorded here

Gorteen Castle shadows a vanished moated site where human hands shaped water and soil into a defensible ring. The earthwork disappeared before the 1908 map, erased by ploughs or patience, leaving only a rectangular ghost on paper. Whatever life moved inside that enclosure has fed the pasture, yet the castle still stands witness to the forgetting.

No visible surface remains, depicted as a sub-rectangular enclosure or earthwork on the 1838 ed. of the OS 6-inch map and not indicated on the 1908 ed. of the OS 6-inch map. The shape of the monument on the 1838 OS 6-inch map suggests that this earthwork may have been a moated site. Gorteen Castle (OF002-026001-) is located 430m to the SE. Described in 1977 as an earthwork that has 'been completely levelled. The earthwork appears to have encircled the end of a low rise or ridge. This was probably a ringfort. The surrounding area is fairly well drained pasture land' (SMR File 1977). The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by Caimin O'Brien Date of upload/revision: 19 December 2011

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