Greenmount Motte is a motte and National Monument in County Louth, Ireland.
Location.
Greenmount Motte is located west of Annagassan, overlooking the Dee Valley.
History and archaeology.
Motte-and-bailey castles were a primitive type of castle built after the Norman invasion, a mound of earth topped by a wooden palisade and tower.
The motte at Greenmount was formerly known as "Droim Chatha" ("Battle Ridge", Anglicised "Dromcath" or "Drumcath"). A Nicholas of Drumcath (Nicholaus de Dromcath) is mentioned in a documents of 1310 and 1328.
The foundations of an elongated chamber (1.5 × 1 m in size, 5.5 m below the summit) are visible in the bailey.
A scabbard-mount with runic inscriptions (, "Domnal Seal's-head owned this sword") was found in excavation, but it believed to be long pre-Norman, indicating that the motte was constructed on the site of an earlier tumulus. Also found were animal bones, charcoal, burnt earth, a bronze axe and a bone harp peg with friction marks.
Greenmount was a camp ground for Catholic Irish forces in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. It was excavated in 1830, causing a cave-in, and again in 1870.
References.
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