What is recorded here

Knockanebrack preserves the angular bawn of Dungrot Castle, where builders scarped a precipitous knoll and cut a wide fosse to force every visitor through a narrow northeast gap. The fort uses the steep glen as much as stone, routing danger into the earth itself. A featureless tower foundation still stands near the centre, overlooking the valley of Slievenamuck and the distant plain of Tipperary.

Westropp (1920, 381) described the enclosure or bawn/bailey of Dun Grot Castle as follows; ‘On its angle, over a deep, bushy stream glen, rises a little fragment of wall, in curious outworks, the last relic of Dungrot Castle [LI050-004002-]. The outworks are a notable instance of the ingenuity of the old fort-makers in adapting natural features. The platform was naturally precipitous to the south and east, so they made a dry-stone revetment along it, and scarped and raised the landward faces into a high and efficient rampart, with a fosse along its foot. They carved and adapted a knoll in the south-west bend the same way, and levelled its summit. Examining the outer defence, we note the fosse, 9 [2.7m] to 12 feet [3.6m] wide, a few feet deep, but deepening eastward towards the gully. In the reach from the eastern edge is the gap of the old gateway, the entrance ramp rising to the platform; it is 6 feet [1.8m] wide, and lies to the north-east of the Castle. To either side of this are large, shallow, oval hollows, or house rings on the platform; that to the south-east abutting against the wall at the precipice. The other site lies to the north-west of the entrance. The garth here is 13 feet [4m] above the field; the rampart from 12 feet [3.6m] to 18 feet [5.5m] high outside, and about 25 feet [7.6m] thick at the base, and 6 feet [1.8m] to 12 feet [3.6m] wide on top. At the north it turns sharply to the south-west, curving back to the upper garth, and, as the natural rise of the field is not counterbalanced in the wall, the latter is rarely over 6 feet [1.8m] high at the neck, where it joins the upper ring fort. This has a bold scarp, 20 feet [6m] to 30 feet [10m] high, till it returns to the gully, and is somewhat irregular, generally speaking oval, about 100 feet [30m] east and west and 90 feet [27m] north and south. Its revetment is from 3 [0.9m] to over 6 feet [1.8m] thick, and on the side of the outwork it usually rises about 10 feet over the fosse, which is rarely 3 feet [0.9m] deep and from 9 [2.7m] to 12 feet [3.6m] wide. Near the centre of the platform on the summit of the knoll stood the castle tower. The whole foundation is featureless, but of fair masonry, about 9 feet [2.7m] high, 15 feet [4.5m] long, and 6 feet [1.8m] thick. There is a fair and extensive view down the glen and the wide valley of Slievenamuck, the open plain and the blue distances of Co. Tipperary’. See attached Google Earth orthoimage taken 21/06/2021 Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 7 October 2021

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