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Fieldnotes
| What an amazing place! Promonotory forts are places I'd usually bypass, and I hadn't planned on going this direction until I was recommended both here, and Cloghcor portal tomb where I'd been earlier, by Martin and Joyce Enright. Inside the fortifications in a mild gale I couldn't help but wonder at the competition and violence that forced the inhabitants to build this godforsaken fort to make their last stand. The smallish fort itself is protected to its east by the 57 metre high hill of Knocklane. There is a narrow strip on its north side that allows easy access to the fort. South of the hill would be inaccessible to invaders except by sea and the peak of the hill itself must have been used as a lookout post. The first (or second last) line of defence is a double ditch, split nearly in half by a causeway. The inner, deeper ditch, is about 4 metres from bottom to top. Either side of the fort are cliffs, though as with the hill, the south would have been much harder to penetrate, hence the building of a bank/wall on the north side. Between here and the last line of defence there are many signs of habitation structures. And then come the mounds of the final last stand. After here there's nothing save a few metres of ground and then death. A site that really caught my imagination. |
Posted by ryaner2nd August 2011ce Edited 24th December 2019ce
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