Moated site, Fennor, Co. Tipperary
In the flat pasture lands of Fennor, County Tipperary South, the remains of a medieval moated site share the landscape with a crumbling farmhouse.
Moated site, Fennor, Co. Tipperary
This rectangular earthwork measures approximately 34.5 metres from northeast to southwest and 37.4 metres from north to south, though its northern section has been completely destroyed. The surviving portions reveal an impressive defensive structure: an earth and stone bank that rises to about 1.1 metres on the outside and is topped by a wide, flat-bottomed outer fosse, or defensive ditch, that once encircled the entire site.
The eastern side preserves the most complete picture of the monument’s original design, including a causewayed entrance about 3.6 metres wide that still shows evidence of its stone facing. The enclosing bank, which has a base width of 4 metres tapering to 2.3 metres at the top, remains largely intact along the eastern, southern, and western sides. Historical maps tell an interesting story of gradual decline; the first Ordnance Survey map from 1840 shows the enclosure as completely intact, but by the 1903 edition, the northern side had already vanished. The southwestern section suffered further damage when farm buildings and a laneway, also visible on the 1840 map, were constructed directly into the external face of the bank, destroying the fosse on that side.
Today, cattle gaps puncture the southern bank, and the defensive ditch varies in condition around the perimeter, partially filled along the south and completely lost from the southern corner through the west to the north. The site forms part of a wider medieval landscape, with a ringfort located 320 metres to the west, suggesting this area held strategic or economic importance during the medieval period. These moated sites, typically dating from the 13th to 14th centuries, were often associated with Anglo-Norman settlement and served as fortified farmsteads for colonising families.





