The Discovery Programme

The Ballyhoura Hills are situated in the Munster Counties of Cork and Limerick and form the western foothills of the Galty mountains. The study area incorporates three very different landscape types: extensive tillage areas of the Blackwater Valley, mountainous topography of the Ballyhoura Hills and relatively undisturbed pasture lands to the north.

The principal aim of the Ballyhoura Hills Project was to draw on the results of recent air reconnaissance and archaeological surveys in the study area, in an attempt to identify sites which might belong to the late prehistoric period. Potential sites within the area include hillforts, linear earthworks, barrows, and small enclosures. Many sites appeared as "crop-marks" only, ie patterns created in fields where the crops are grown above long-vanished structures.