Ringfort (Rath), Shanvally, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Shanvally, Co. Mayo

On the level crest of a ridge in Shanvally, a field of pasture holds the ghost of an early medieval enclosure.

The site is easy to miss, and that is rather the point. What was once a rath, a ringfort defined by a circular earthen bank and used as a farmstead or place of status in early medieval Ireland, has been so thoroughly levelled that only the faintest traces remain visible at ground level.

The enclosure appeared clearly on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1838, drawn as a circular embanked feature roughly 25 metres in diameter. By later map editions it had vanished from the cartographic record entirely, suggesting it was already being eroded or deliberately cleared during the nineteenth century. What survives today is the eastern half of the original circuit, readable as a slight raised undulation across the ground and anchored at its north-northeast by a short remnant of an earth and stone bank, no more than half a metre high, two metres wide, and four metres long. A field boundary running northeast to southwest now bisects the interior, cutting across what would have been the enclosed space. The Glore River runs approximately 200 metres to the south, a reminder that the ridge-top position was likely chosen with both drainage and visibility in mind, though high modern fencing now limits the views considerably. Perhaps the most intriguing detail is a slight hollow in the southern half of the interior, which local tradition identifies as a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage typically used in early medieval Ireland for storage or refuge. The hollow has not been excavated, and the souterrain, if it exists, remains unconfirmed beneath the pasture.

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Pete F
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