Ringfort (Rath), Carrigeensharragh, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Ringforts
Some historical sites draw visitors because of what survives.
This one is notable, in a quieter way, for what does not. On a steep south-facing slope above the River Moyle in County Tipperary, there is no longer anything to see. A ringfort, the kind of circular earthen enclosure defined by a bank and outer ditch that was the standard form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, once occupied this hillside. Sometime before 1994, the landowner levelled it entirely. The ground holds no visible trace.
When a surveyor visited in 1982, the enclosure was still intact, described as a small circular structure in fair condition, roughly 30 metres in diameter. That is a modest size for a ringfort, but not unusual. The site sat on undulating terrain with the River Moyle running along the base of the slope below it, a position that would have offered both drainage and a degree of natural defence, as well as proximity to water. The second edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map, published in 1906, also recorded earthworks running roughly east to west just above the northern edge of the monument, likely the remains of an old trackway. Those too are gone, levelled along with the ringfort itself at some point in the intervening decades.
What makes Carrigeensharragh worth a moment's attention is precisely this gap between record and reality. The 1906 map shows it. The 1982 visit found it standing. By 1994, nothing remained. The site sits in a landscape that still rolls and dips above the Moyle, the topography more or less unchanged, but the human mark on it has been erased. It is one of many such losses across the Irish countryside, where agricultural improvement or simple indifference has quietly removed features that had persisted for over a thousand years.