These distinctive earthwork enclosures, typically dating from the 13th to 17th centuries, consisted of a raised platform surrounded by a water-filled ditch or ‘moat’, which served both defensive and drainage purposes in Ireland’s often waterlogged landscape. The moat would have originally enclosed a timber hall or tower house, along with various outbuildings for livestock, storage, and daily agricultural activities.

Archaeological evidence suggests that moated sites like this one were home to moderately prosperous farming families; people who had enough wealth to construct substantial defences but weren’t quite at the level of castle-building nobility. The rectangular or square platforms, usually measuring between 30 and 60 metres across, would have been accessed by a wooden bridge or causeway. While the original structures have long since vanished, leaving only the earthworks behind, these sites tell us much about patterns of settlement, land ownership, and the gradual blending of Norman and Gaelic cultures during the medieval period.

Today, many of Ireland’s estimated 750 moated sites appear as little more than tree-covered mounds in farmers’ fields, their defensive ditches now dry or marshy. Yet they remain important archaeological monuments, marking places where families once farmed, traded, and defended their small corners of medieval Ireland. The Mayo example, like others scattered across the midlands and east of the country, serves as a reminder that not all medieval fortifications were grand stone castles; sometimes security came in the form of a modest wooden hall surrounded by a flooded ditch.