ANCIENT MONUMENTS
OF
BUTTEVANT
It would appear that there are 124 ancient
monuments in the parish of Buttevant, all
dating from pre-1700. Here is a detailed
piece on the monuments:
Standing
Stones:
Four are recorded, in the townlands of
Boherascrub East, Bregoge, Currymount and
Velvetstown. They are probably the oldest
of the ancient monuments
ofButtevant.
Standing stones are upright stones, usually
set in the open. At present, they are used
as rubbing stones for cattle. They
Interfere with mechanical tillage, and it
is probable that many of them have been
removed. They may be made of
local
limestone, but there is a
tendency for exotic stones to be used. In
Buttevant, large blocks of Old Red
Sandstone, ice- rafted from the Ballyhoura
Mountains, may be expected to have used as
standing stones; Galway granite occurs in
small stones, but Is unlikely to be so
shaped as to be erected into a standing
stone.
In many cases, there are ogham writing
marks incised along the edges of the
standing stones. There are no records of
such writings on the four standing stones
now in Buttevant parish. Ogham writings may
be from the few centuries after A.D. and
would be incised on stones which may have
been standing for over 1,000 years. Or, of
course, some ogham recorded event may have
justified the erection of a late standing
stone, set up in, say, 300 A.D., and not in
1,300 B.C. And equally so, a good farmer in
1750 A.D. might erect a scratching stone
for his herd, and such now passes for an
ancient standing stone.
The four standing stones n Buttevant parish
tend to be in the vicinity of Kilmacklenine
(except the Velvetstown standing stone).
This was a major centre during the late
Neolithic, Copper and Early Bronze times.
There are rings of standing stones there,
an advance on the single
standing stones found in Buttevant
parish.
Fulachta
Fiadhs:
Fourteen are recorded, with 3 in Ardaprior
and six in Templemary; the remaining five
are in the townlands of Ballyvorisheen,
Curraglass, Currymount, Dreenagh West and
Velvetstown. Fulachta Fladh means "deer
roast", and they are
sometimes called fulachta
fiann, or "cooking places of the
Fianna".
A Fulachta Fiadh is a site where meat
(mainly venison) and fish (mainly salmon)
were cooked, ether by roasting or
by
boiling. They have a number
of characteristic features, but many such
sites will have been dissipated and lost
due mainly to ploughing. They are very
numerous In the south of Ireland, located
mainly in damp. low-lying areas near a
stream. Boiling meat was the main function,
and basically consisted of a wooden trough
which was Inserted into a pit dug in the
ground. The trough was filled with water
which was brought to the boll, and kept
boiling, by dropping in heated or red-hot
stones. These stones were heated at a
nearby hearth, using wood for burning. The
wooden trough may have been lined with
leather, to make It leak-proof. Parboiled
meat may have been roasted at the hearth.
They were not permanent settlements, but
regular camping sites during the hunting
season.
Heaps of burnt stones are now the main mark
of a Fulachta Fiadh. Sandstones burnt
better, for they do not flake or
disintegrate into lime when burnt. The
stones are cobbles, not too large, not too
small. Ploughing may have scattered them
over a wide area, but such burnt stones are
readily Identified. The wooden trough may
be so deeply buried as to be preserved from
anything but deep ploughing or drainage
operations.
There are no descriptions of any of the
fourteen fulachta fiadhs found in Buttevant
parish.
Ring-Forts:
Sixty-seven Ring-Forts are recorded from
Buttevant parish. They are far and away the
most numerous type of the ancient monuments
of Buttevant parish. If they were all
occupied at the same time. It would mean
that the average farm size was about 220
acres, for the total area of the parish is
14800 acres. They have been much studied,
and even early studies, as Westropp
(1901) can still be read with deep
interest.
They were erected over a long
period of time Possibly over 1,500 years.
The earliest may have been built In 500 B C
. the last of them in 1,000 A.D. It Is
estimated that some 30 000 to 40.000 have
been erected in Ireland; since it is not
difficult to remove such earth ring-forts
made of earth, it is possible that in the
past. as is happening now in the
present many have been removed. The
dread and respect with which they were held
at times in the past makes their
destruction long age as unlikely. Over
the whole 17 million acres of the Republic,
40,000 ring-forts would represent a denisty
of one per 425 acres; density in Buttevant
is therefore double the density over
Ireland as a whole.
These ring-forts may be called raths, duns
or liosses where constructed entirely
or mainly of piled-up earth.
Where
they are stone, or
mainly of stone, they are called caiseal
cathair o daingean. All those in Buttevant
are completely of
Earth. Though at
present grouped under the general term
"ring fort" they were seldom used as forts
or were places of
military importance.
They were essentially farmsteads, where a
farmer and his family, their servants and
slaves, lived, and
into which at night or
in winter, some or all of the animals were
herded. The term "rath" refers to, or
places emphasis on.
the surrounding bank
and ditch. The term "dun" may indicate a
larger structure, and one of some military
importance; it
could be the residence
of the chieftain or leader of the
area.
It would seem that the larger ring forts,
usually constructed on a hill-tip, are much
more of military significance. And there
may have lived the local chieftain. It is
thought that such duns would be able to
resist a surprise raid or attack for long
enough for his people, living in the raths
and liosses within the vicinity of the
attack to mass their men and come to the
aid of the attacked dun. On the other hand,
spacing of the ring forts may have been
based on the size of an economic farm
holding, averaging 220 acres In the good
lands of Buttevant, and say 450 acres for
Ireland as a whole.
Souterrains:
There are only four souterrains recorded
from Buttevant parish, in the townlands of
Ballyvorisheen, Dreehagh West, Grange East
and Rathclare. Three are recorded by the
archeologlcal survey.
The souterrains are closely connected with
the ring forts, but also with the hill
forts, none of which occur in Buttevant
parish. The souterrains are usually under a
rath, lios or dun, and also under their
stone-built equivalent, the caiseal or
cathair. So, they were constructed from 500
B.C. onwards, and seen to be closely allied
with the introduction of iron and then
steel, and the beginnings of La Tene culure
in Ireland.
Most of these souterrains are simple
structures consisting of one or more
parallel-sided trenches excavated some 3 to
4 feet underground, lined with stone and
roofed with stone flags covered with caly,
so that they were concealed. Entrance was
through small, narrow openings, and similar
small openings allowed a person to crawl or
wriggle from one larger portion of the
souterrain to another.
Their use is not quite certain. They could
be used to store food. Their equitable low
temperatures may have enabled milk to be
held without souring. Nuts, grain and
similar foods could be stored in them at
harvest-time. Or, they could have been
hiding places for women and children when a
rath, lios or dun was attacked. If the
raiders had but a few minutes to ransack
the buildings before reinforcements arrived
and forced the raiders to flee, then
short-term concealment could save wives and
children from death, rape or being carried
off as slaves or
hostages.
