Ringfort (Rath), Com An Liaigh, Co. Kerry

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Com An Liaigh, Co. Kerry

At the head of a quiet valley running south-east from Coumaleague Hill in County Kerry, an early medieval farmstead has left its mark on the landscape in the form of a slowly disappearing earthwork.

The enclosure, roughly circular and about 18.5 metres across internally, is a rath, the most common type of ringfort in Ireland. Raths were typically built as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, their earthen banks defining a private space for a household and its livestock. This one has not fared equally well on all sides: the south-west quadrant has been completely levelled, and the north-east is reduced to a low scarp barely three-quarters of a metre high. Where the bank survives more intact, it stands around a metre tall and two metres wide, which gives a reasonable sense of how modest yet purposeful such enclosures were in their original form.

The site's fosse, the external ditch that would once have reinforced the bank's defensive or boundary function, survives only on the western side, where it remains 2.75 metres wide and a metre deep. The entrance faces east, as was common with raths across Ireland, and measures 2.7 metres wide. A flattened platform visible below the scarped section in the north-east quadrant is likely the result of deliberate or gradual destruction of the bank at that point rather than any original feature of the design. The site was catalogued by J. Cuppage as part of the Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey published in 1986, a comprehensive study of the Corca Dhuibhne region that documented the remarkable density of prehistoric and early historic monuments on the peninsula.

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