Add your own picture and explain the route, parking, gates, paths or landmarks that help people find it.
Earn 5 points after the picture is checked and accepted.
Add your photo and local directionsShare what you foundWhat is recorded here
Situated towards the NW end of a small NW-SE drumlin ridge. This rath, or rath (MO019-007----) c. 60m to the SE is represented on McCrea’s Map of County Monaghan (1793), and it is also represented a small circular embanked enclosure (ext. diam. c. 25m) on the 1834 edition of the OS 6-inch map where it is described in gothic script as a ‘fort’. It was described in 1968 as surviving only NW of a NE-SW field bank as a scarp (Wth 1.1m; H 1m) (SMR file).
The rath was excavated (05E0375; 05E785) as part of the N2 Clontibret – Castleblayney road re-alignment. No fosse was identified but the hill had been scarped into a circular platform (diam. c. 30m; H c. 0.5m) and a portion of the earth and stone bank (Wth 2m; H 0.6m) was preserved where it underlay the modern field bank. There may have been a ramp entrance at SE. Six small pits (dims 0.7m x 0.65m; T 0.07m to 1.3m x 0.77m; T 0.15m) in the interior are probably contemporary and are interpreted for the most part as hearth pits. A blue glass bead was recovered from one of the pits and a charcoal sample produced a C14 date of 1190 +- 45 BP. (Sutton 2005, 5-10, XXVI; 2008; Coughlin 2008)
The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Monaghan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.
Revised by: Michael Moore
Date of revision: 22 June 2018
The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.