Ringfort (Rath), Knockandarragh, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Ringforts
On the southern face of an east-west ridge at Knockandarragh, County Wicklow, sits a ringfort that is slightly more complicated than it first appears.
Most ringforts, the circular enclosed settlements that dot the Irish countryside in their thousands and date broadly to the early medieval period, consist of a single bank and ditch. This one is bivallate, meaning it has two concentric lines of defence: an inner bank, a fosse (a dry ditch), and then a second, outer bank beyond that. The outer bank survives best at the north-east, where the earthworks are still legible in the landscape, though the whole enclosure spans roughly 36 metres across.
The entranceway, probably at the south-west where a gap breaks the inner bank, is mirrored by a further gap at the north-east, and a small bank attached to the site near that south-west entrance may represent the remains of an annexe, a secondary enclosure sometimes used for livestock or storage. What draws particular attention, though, is a feature in the north-east of the interior: a small hollow about three metres across and 0.7 metres deep, with notably vertical sides and a narrow access trench leading into it. The vertical walls and trench are suggestive of deliberate construction rather than natural subsidence. Two possibilities have been raised: it could be the collapsed remnant of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage that early medieval households used for storage or refuge, or it could be the remains of a kiln, used for drying grain or firing clay. The distinction matters, because each points to a rather different kind of domestic life going on inside these banks.
The site sits quietly on its ridge without any formal visitor infrastructure, which is fairly typical of earthwork monuments in rural Wicklow. The earthworks themselves remain visible, and the double-bank structure is the thing worth looking for, particularly that well-preserved north-eastern stretch where the defensive logic of the original layout still reads clearly in the ground.