Look at the district map on the board. Find our school in the middle, then find the castle nearest the school.

What sits around it? Look for roads, water, high ground, a town or open country. Say one thing you notice and one thing you wonder.

Our question for today is what its position tells us about who wanted to watch and hold this ground, and who they guarded it against.

In medieval Ireland, roughly between 1150 and 1500, powerful people built strongholds to hold land and watch the country around them. Some were large stone castles. Others were tall, narrow tower houses, often a family home as well as a place of defence. Earlier still, newcomers raised earthen mounds called mottes, with a wooden or stone building on top.

A stronghold was rarely placed by chance. Builders looked for high ground, a river bend, a road, a ford or a harbour, places from which someone could see who was coming. Thick walls, narrow windows and a strong gate were defensive features. They made the building hard to enter and easier to hold.

The position of a stronghold is itself evidence. It shows what the people who built it wanted to watch and what they wanted to protect. Ordinary families left almost no written records from this time, so stone, earth and the shape of the land are often what we have left to read.

Work in pairs. Your job is to record the stronghold, then show on the district map what it could watch.

1. If you are going out, walk to the castle nearest the school with your teacher. Stay on the paths and do not climb the walls or touch the stone.
2. On your sheet, record where it sits, what it is made of, its defensive features, and what it overlooks. Write only what you can really see, or what the site record states if you are working inside.
3. Back at the board (or if you are staying inside), open the district map and mark the routes, rivers and high ground near the stronghold. If you need a ford, gate or other spot marked, pin it and write its name.
4. Talk with your pair about what people inside could see and control from here.

Look back at your sheet and at the map you marked. Answer these three questions about the castle nearest the school in order.

1. What can you see or record about this stronghold?
2. What does its position and shape tell us about what it was for?
3. What can this stronghold not tell us about ordinary people who lived nearby?

Then agree as a class what its position tells us about who wanted to watch and hold this ground, and who they guarded it against. Say which evidence backs your answer. On your sheet, write what this stronghold cannot tell us.

Say the key words together: castle, tower house, motte, defensive, position.

Our finding goes toward the timeline wall. A medieval stronghold still stands near us, and its place in the landscape is evidence of who wanted to watch and hold this ground.

This part is talk only. If somebody built a stronghold here today, what would they want to watch or hold?