Coolkenno History

MUNNY MOTTE - Often wrongly spelt as Moat or Mote, this mound feature is situated in The Mote Field in Munny Upper. A motte is a twelfth century Norman earthwork, often a mound, and associated with the early phases of Anglo-Norman inhabitation of Ireland (1170-1220). They were defensive beacons along a harsh and unknown frontier, in days when Norman advance took preference over long term settlement such as stone castles which were built when an area had been somewhat pacified. In April 1933, the antiquarian, Liam Price, visited the mound with Rev. T.E. Young of Aghold Parish. He (Young) showed me, first, a mound in Money Upper in a field called 'The Mote Field' on Mr. Lawrenson's land (now land belonging to the Bielenberg family). It is 400 yards or so south of Money House on the other side of the road. It is 64 paces in circumference, and about 9 feet high. It is composed of large stones, or small boulders, of granite piled together, with yellow clay, which holds them together, and it is covered with grass, and has some old trees planted on it. On the south-east side it has been slightly dug away and the boulders apparently used to face the field fence behind it. I should say this is a prehistoric cairn containing a burial chamber, which is very probably undisturbed. So maybe it is not a Norman defensive motte, even though it contains the same physical features and also the fact there was, until recently, a similar earthwork a half mile away in Munny Lower, known locally as The Hulk, but this, like many archaeological monuments of late, has been destroyed.