Barrow — ring-barrow in Kiltoom

The precise location of this monument that was discovered in 1981 by the ASI has not been identified. The monument is not marked on any edition of the OS 6-inch map. A field map in the paper file of the ASI marks the location of this barrow in the area currently marked on the RMP map. There are some discrepancies between the location marked on the map and the site report description which suggests that this field map may have been incorrectly marked. In 2015 McGuinness (2015, 56-7) was unable to located barrow at the area marked on the six-inch map. McGuiness recorded that the ‘Monument was not located by the survey-team during a single examination of the area indicated. The ASI account is given here: Ring-Barrow. In good pastureland. The site is unrecorded from the 6” sheets. The barrow is 13.25m wide in total, along the line WNW-ESE, the site is circular, but is bisected along the S.W. section of the fosse by a fairly modern field hedge. There is an external fosse, on average 3.75m wide from exterior lip to top of internal bank. The base of the fosse averaging 1m wide. The fosse is 25cm deep from the exterior, and 38cm deep from the top of the bank. The internal bank is 90cm wide at top, and 2.5m wide in total. The bank is 15cm above the interior, and slopes gently to the interior. The interior is level, 7m in diameter. On the E. the bank and ditch is covered by thorns. To the S and S.W. the bank is only 11cm above the fosse, and has been reduced by the hedgerow encroaching on it. To the E. is a removed field-bank 8.2m away, but this is only marked on the 1st edition 6” sheet. The land does not appear ever to have been cultivated. [SMR file] Barrow lies close to E bank of the Yellow River. A Middle to Late Bronze Age fulacht fiadh has been documented close by (WM007-007----; O’Sullivan 2007 et al., 64), but this was not located by the survey-team either. Numerous crannogs have been documented in Lough Derravaragh, including a large and important example in Coolure Demesne c. 1.5km to W, primarily used from the early 5th century AD onwards but with evidence for a Late Bronze Age palisade, which lies just offshore from a large so-called ‘raised ringfort’, the two having a near-identical juxtaposition as the historically attested royal crannog of Cro-inis and the comparable ‘raised ringfort’ of Dún na Sgiath, also historically attested, on Lough Ennell in the S of the county (O’Sullivan et al. 2007, 69-70). About 1.2km to SSW in same townland and close to shore of lake, but above high water mark, were a series of three circular earthworks (WM007-019----/023----/027----), now only visible as cropmarks and identified simply as sites of earthworks by the ASI, but in two instances depicted as stepped mounds on the OS 6” map, and therefore potentially comparable to some other barrows in the county; O’Sullivan et al. (2007, 128-9) suggest that these might have been ring-barrows, and, although two of them appear to be stepped on OS 6” map, the southern one is shown as a mound surrounded by a ditch and outer bank, i.e. as a ring-barrow, on the historic OS 25” map on OSi website. Close to these earthworks along the shoreline are several ‘small, low-cairn crannogs [which] could well be Bronze Age in origin, although their size, morphology and proximity to an early medieval church [see below] also suggest an early medieval date’ (O’Sullivan et al. 2007, 64,128-9). Compiled and revised by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by David McGuinness. Date of revised upload: 21 February 2017