Lismore Councillor Bernard Leddy wants the history of the town’s Round Hill walk made available to visitors. The first monastic settlement in Lismore was founded by St. Carthage at Round Hill. The fact that there’s a pre-existing Iron Age fort on the site makes it “doubly interesting and unique”, Cllr. Leddy told the members’ recent meeting.

He’d recently met a couple from New Hampshire while walking the route along by the river and, in the absence of any type of information board, explained some of the history to them of what he termed “the jewel in the crown of medieval archaeology in west Waterford.”

Councillor Ken Madden advised that Mella Fahey from the Heritage Centre brought down some form of expert to examine the site previously, but, he said, it didn’t go much further than that. He agreed with Cllr. Leddy that it is a very important site and said that, if there was one thing they could do for the future of Lismore, it should be that.

SITE ASSESSMENT

Cllr. Leddy said his son is an archaeology student who believes it wouldn’t take much to appraise the site and do up some information on it. Cllr. Orla Russell pointed out that colleges were written to previously, to ascertain interest in having their archaeology students take a look at the site. None had replied to their letters, she was told.

“It’s a national monument,” Cllr. Leddy pointed out, saying the castle owners had given permission for the site to be examined. He said Earthsound, an Irish team specialising in non-invasive, non-destructive surveys to aid the detection, identification and analysis of archaeological sites, might be interested.