Ringfort (Rath), An Mhín Aird Bhuí, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Ringforts
On a gentle east-facing slope above the Minard valley in County Kerry, a circular earthwork sits partly absorbed into the surrounding field system, its ancient boundary line preserved not just in a bank of earth but in the curve of a later dry-stone wall that simply followed what was already there.
That quiet continuity, farmers building their enclosures along the edge of something far older, is one of the more telling details about this rath.
A rath is an early medieval ringfort, typically a farmstead enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches, and this example is univallate, meaning it has a single line of enclosure. Its internal diameter measures 26.4 metres, roughly in keeping with the range associated with single-family farmsteads of the early historic period. The earthen bank survives along the south-east and southern sectors, standing up to 1.25 metres high on the inside and around 1.1 metres on the outside. Elsewhere around the perimeter, the original bank has been replaced by a field wall that traces its arc almost exactly, suggesting that the form of the rath remained visible and useful to later generations even as its original purpose was forgotten. J. Cuppage documented the site in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, a systematic effort to record the dense concentration of prehistoric and early medieval monuments across the Corca Dhuibhne region. Where the original entrance once lay is not known; currently, gaps in the bank at the south and south-east provide the way in.