Ringfort (Rath), Bloomfield, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Bloomfield, Co. Mayo

What looks like a gentle swelling in a Mayo pasture turns out, on closer inspection, to be the quietly surviving outline of an early medieval farmstead.

Set on a north-east-facing slope near Bloomfield, this ringfort, or rath, is a circular raised area roughly 28 to 29 metres across, enclosed by two earthen banks separated by a fosse, the shallow ditch that once formed part of the site's defensive or boundary system. The inner bank survives to about 0.3 metres in height and the outer to around 0.2 metres, though both have been considerably levelled, particularly along their northern and southern arcs.

Ringforts are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, with several thousand recorded across the island. They served primarily as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, with the banks and ditches marking a household's territory and offering some protection for people and livestock. The double-bank arrangement at this site, with its intervening fosse, placed it slightly above the most basic single-enclosure type, suggesting a holding of modest but not insignificant status. The survey of Ballinrobe and its surrounding district, compiled by D. Lavelle and published in 1994 by the Lough Mask and Lough Carra Tourist Development Association, recorded the site as it then stood, already well worn by centuries of agricultural use, the banks reduced to low ridges readable more by shadow and slope than by any dramatic profile.

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