forts historical ireland

Just to the west of the city of Armagh lies Navan, once known as Ema. Dynamic audio-visual techniques, narration, interactive devices and even the design of the building itself are all employed to bring the area's archaelogy and mystery to life....

A focal point of the northern midlands where the provinces of Leinster, Ulster and Connaught all converge, Longford, where history and literature, tragedy and triumph are all woven together, takes its name from the ancient stronghold of the O'Farrell family (Long Fort - Fort of the O'Farrells).

Bordered to the West by the majestic River Shannon, Longford is a county of rolling plains and picturesque stretches of water. The highest pint of the county, Cairn Hill, is only 279 m high, bu...

The first fort was built here in the reign of Elizabeth I. Other Churches in this area include the South Chapel a Georgian Church of 1766 and St. Nicholas Protestant Church.

The Red Abbey on Mary St. of Douglas St is the sole survivor of the monasteries of medieval Cork. An augustinian Priory, it was founded in the 14th century....

Large and imposing hilltop ring fort. On private land....

The hollowed-out centre makes it difficult to define this monument as a motte, though it may be identical with the Kill Santain or Kilsandel built by John de Courcy towards the close of the 12th century as a place from which he made forays west of the Bann. Excavations at the foot of the monument close to the river produced 13th century pottery and a carbonised branch of 13th century date. To the east, on high ground, is a fenced off area where excavations in 1973-77 uncovered remnants of Meso...

Lurigethan Fort is at a height of 385 m. Probably about 3000 years ago Bronze or Iron Age men built ramparts to enclose an area of about 16 ha. These people could best be described as warlike farmers. The site would have been rather bleak for a permanent settlement and may have been a market or trading area....

This large oval mound dominates the Bann River beside the site of Ireland's oldest house, inhabited 9,000 years ago. Riverside walk. Free access always. A mile south-east of Coleraine....

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...

The custom of building lake-dwellings or crannogs may have started with the Mesolithic hunters and food-gatherers who arrived in Ireland 9,000 years ago, though no example excavated so far has been dated earlier than the Bronze Age. Most in fact appear to belong to the Early Christian period, and doubtless many were inhabited well into Medieval times and beyond. Lough-na-Crannagh, a small limpid lake cradled in a hollow on the summit of Fair Head on the north Antrim coast, contains perhaps...

Some 2 km further on, this time on the left hand side, but at some distance from the road, are the remains of Beal Boru, or Brian Boru's fort. Little more than the site has survived, marked by traces of earthen ramparts and a surrounding ditch. The ring fort is located on a spur of land at the point where the lake narrows before passing through Killaloe and the fort had a certain strategic value commanding the northern approached to the royal palace of Kincora. The fort is of considerable ant...