Standing Stone	Ring Fort	Castle	Weir	Inniscarra Bridge
Oriel House	Gunpowder Mills	Lime Kiln	Military Barracks	St Mary and St John's Church

Ringfort

In 2006, a ring fort was discovered just off the Link Road (Leo Murphy Road) during excavations prior to the building of a new fire department building. It was identified thanks to aerial photographs which showed circular marks on the ground. Through radio carbon dating techniques, it was dated definitively to 625AD.

Ring forts are circular areas enclosed by an earthen bank formed of soil dug from the surrounding ditch. They tended to be farmsteads and the dwelling houses were generally dry-stone or timber built. There are thousands of such sites throughout Ireland.

The fort at Ballincollig had two sets of ditches, 2 meters in depth and 4 meters in width and two banks. Its entrance was in the SE corner. However, more archaeology was found outside the perimeter ditch. A series of post holes and stake holes indicated the presence of a circular dwelling, possibly from an earlier settlement. A corn drying kiln stood nearby.

Most exciting was the discovery of an underground passage made of limestone and green sandstone, 4 meters in length and 0.8-1.1 meters in width with a small upright limestone slab at the entrance. There was however no chamber, typical of a souterrain. This could well indicate the presence of a second earlier ring fort. Finds included animal bone, part of a horse, cremated bone fragments, a hone (sharpening) stone, pottery, burnt wood and possible seeds.

The building of the new fire services headquarters is now on hold

BHA would like to see the new fire department sympathetically designed with reference made to the site on which it stands and relevant interpretative panels.

Further images can be seen on the Gallery page. These photographs are taken from a report by Dan Noonan (archaeological consultant) commissioned by Cork County Council and soon to be published.

Courtesy of Cork county council.