Gortlownan Motte is a

motte A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to ...

and National Monument located in

County Sligo County Sligo ( , gle, Contae Shligigh) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the Border Region and is part of the province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the an ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Location

Gortlownan Motte is located 2.4 km (1½ miles) west-southwest of Dromahair, just on the Sligo side of the border.

History and archaeology

Motte-and-bailey castles were a primitive type of castle built after the

Norman invasion The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...

, a mound of earth topped by a wooden palisade and tower. The motte at Gortlownan may have been built on the site of an earlier

Gaelic Irish The Gaels ( ; ga, Na Gaeil ; gd, Na Gàidheil ; gv, Ny Gaeil ) are an ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man in the British Isles. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic languag ...

hillfort.

References

{{Reflist Archaeological sites in County Sligo National Monuments in County Sligo Motte-and-bailey castles