Castle - ringwork, Greenan, Co. Tipperary North
Co. Tipperary |
Castle Features
At the base of a south-facing slope in County Tipperary North, an ancient ringwork castle occupies a commanding position above an undulating valley.
The site sits roughly 10 metres east of a small stream that runs north to south through the landscape. What makes this particular fortification interesting is how its builders modified the natural terrain; they carved into a small hillock to create a large, trapezoidal platform that measures up to 66 metres at its widest point. This grass-covered platform is surrounded by a low earthen and gravel bank that stands about 1.57 metres high on the exterior but appears far less imposing from within, where it rises only 35 centimetres above the interior ground level.
The defensive bank shows signs of both age and agricultural interference. The northeastern section has been levelled flat, whilst modern farming has worn away the southern end of the eastern side. Whilst no proper fosse or defensive ditch is visible around the base of the platform, there is a slight, metre-wide depression that tends to collect water, perhaps a remnant of whatever defensive features once existed there. The steep external face of the bank would have presented a formidable obstacle to any would-be attackers, even if it appears relatively modest from inside the enclosure.
Two fulacht fiadh, ancient cooking sites typically associated with Bronze Age activity, add another layer of historical intrigue to the location. One has been incorporated directly into the northeastern angle of the ringwork itself, whilst another lies immediately to the north. These prehistoric cooking pits, which predate the medieval fortification by potentially thousands of years, suggest this spot held significance long before the ringwork was constructed, making it a palimpsest of human activity spanning multiple eras of Irish history.