What is recorded here

The Shountore, a 139-metre oval of rolling pasture in County Cork, still carries the local name for sanctuary or old church. Its earthen bank rises one and a half metres above the grass, while Kilcorcoran graveyard presses against the eastern edge as if the living and dead shared one breathing field. A smaller curve inside the main ring suggests the place changed shape twice, perhaps narrowing as belief hardened into boundary. People may have walked this grass for centuries before stone or script ever marked it.

In rolling pasture, with Kilcorcoran graveyard (14616) adjoining and projecting slightly into enclosure on E side. Large oval enclosure (c. 139m NNW-SSE; c. 115m max. WSW-ENE) defined by substantial earthen bank (H 1.4m), with external fosse evident on N side as gentle slope down to external base of bank. Interior gently undulating. A 'mound' on E side of enclosure, close to boundary wall of graveyard, has been interpreted as site of an earlier church (Linehan 1997, 70). However, this mound is part of low bank curving W->E across middle of enclosure, from W bank to NW corner of graveyard, which if projected, would take in W end of graveyard and rejoin bank of main enclosure to its S to form a smaller oval enclosure (c. 110m NNW-SSE; c. 100m WSW-ENE) (pers. comm. C. Manning). Enclosure known locally as 'The Shountore, which...equates with 'sanctóir' ' a sanctuary and 'seantóir', an old church or burying place (ibid., 69-70). According to Bowman (1934, 432), field also known as 'The Glebe'. Holy well (14035) c. 80m to S. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 4: North Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2000). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

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