Ringfort (Rath), Carrowkeribly, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Carrowkeribly, Co. Mayo

Tucked into a north-south ridge in County Mayo, this oval earthwork carries within its boundary something that sets it apart from the thousands of similar enclosures scattered across Ireland: a children's burial ground, occupying the south-west quadrant of the interior.

The combination is quietly unsettling, layering two very different chapters of Irish history onto the same ground.

The enclosure itself measures roughly 50 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west, and follows the form of a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead typically dating to the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1000 AD. On the western side, the defining bank is broad and low, around 6.6 metres wide, with some rough stone facing visible on both its inner and outer surfaces. On the eastern half this bank diminishes to a scarp, a simple slope cut into the ground rather than a built-up mound. A narrow ditch runs along the outside of the bank at the north-west, though at only 1.4 metres wide and 0.2 metres deep it seems oddly slight relative to the bank itself, and may have been added later; it does not continue around the rest of the circuit. A two-metre gap in the bank at the north likely marks the original entrance. The interior is level, and the bank's outer edge is thickly grown over with blackthorn, hawthorn, and brambles. To the east, the ridge looks out over pastureland; to the west, a broad stretch of bog opens up below. The children's burial ground within the south-west quadrant belongs to a tradition, practised in Ireland well into the twentieth century, of burying unbaptised infants in liminal or ancient places, set apart from consecrated ground. Ringforts were frequently chosen for this purpose, their age and ambiguity lending them a kind of sanctity outside the official church.

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