These earthwork enclosures, typically dating from the 13th to 14th centuries, were once common throughout the Irish landscape, serving as fortified homesteads for colonising families who needed both status symbols and practical defences. The Carrowcaslan site consists of a raised platform surrounded by a water-filled ditch, or moat, which would have originally held a timber hall and various outbuildings.

What makes moated sites particularly fascinating is their dual purpose; they weren’t quite castles, yet they were far more defensive than ordinary farmsteads. The Anglo-Normans who built them were attempting to establish themselves in a landscape that was often hostile to outsiders, and these structures represented a compromise between the stone castles of the nobility and the more modest dwellings of lesser colonists. At Carrowcaslan, the earthworks remain remarkably well preserved, offering visitors a chance to walk around the perimeter and imagine the medieval settlement that once stood here, complete with its drawbridge entrance, palisade walls, and the daily comings and goings of a household that straddled two cultures.

Archaeological evidence from similar sites across Ireland suggests these moated enclosures often housed extended families along with servants, livestock, and stores of grain. They flourished during a period of relative prosperity in medieval Ireland but many were abandoned during the upheavals of the 14th century, including the Bruce Invasion of 1315-1318 and the Black Death that followed decades later. Today, Carrowcaslan stands as a grass-covered monument to this turbulent period, its defensive ditches now home to rushes and waterfowl rather than armed retainers, yet still clearly visible as a rectangular island rising from the surrounding fields.