beal boru brian boru s fort

It has long been identified - though without any certainty - as the seat of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland from 1002 until his death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Coins found in an excavation of the site certainly showed that a house had been occupied inside during the 11th century, and the Annals of the Four Masters tell us that it was raided and demolished in 1116.
The site proved to have been inhabited at two separate periods, and the house belonged to the first period of occupation. What is visible today - the high bank, deep ditch and raised centre with sunken interior - is likely to belong to the second, later phase which may have been the result of the Normans making an unfinished effort to turn the ringfort into a motte in the year 1207.