The ringwork castles of medieval Leinster and Meath

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to examine the evidence for ringwork castles in the medieval territories of Leinster and Meath and their place in the wider context of British and European castle studies. The ringwork castle is a form of earthwork castle that was constructed in the high medieval period as an alternative to the more common motte castle. The identification of ringwork castles in an Irish context poses many challenges due mainly to the presence of many thousands of ringforts in the Irish landscape and the difficulties involved in distinguishing between the two site-types. The issues and challenges of ringwork identification are discussed in this thesis and a new methodology for the fiature identification of ringwork castles, based on analysis of the archaeological and historical sources, is proposed in Chapter Three.