Ringfort, Ballinameesda, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Ringforts
What survives of this ringfort in Ballinameesda, County Wicklow, is almost nothing: a low arc of earth and stone, seven metres long, half a metre high, sitting along an old field boundary at the south-west of where the enclosure once stood.
A ringfort, for those unfamiliar with the form, is a roughly circular enclosed settlement typical of early medieval Ireland, usually defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, and used as a farmstead or place of refuge. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of repair. This one is not among the better-preserved examples.
The 1838 Ordnance Survey six-inch map recorded the site as a circular enclosure with a diameter of roughly thirty metres, which gives some sense of what has been lost in the intervening years. It sits on a gentle north-east-facing slope at the foot of steeper ground, now within forestry, a setting that would have offered a degree of shelter while still commanding some outlook across lower ground. The bank remnant, two metres wide where it can still be traced, follows the line of an old field boundary, suggesting that agricultural activity over the centuries gradually absorbed and erased the original earthworks.