Ringfort (Rath), Graffin, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Graffin, Co. Tipperary

On the south-south-westerly slope just below a hilltop in Graffin, Co. Tipperary, a ringfort sits in a situation that is partly ancient and partly accidental.

What should be a gently enclosed early medieval farmstead now reads more like a promontory fort, its western side dropping away sharply to what appears to be a quarried cliff face. The quarrying, carried out at some point in the modern era, cut into the western flank of the hill and removed whatever earthwork once stood there, leaving the monument with an abrupt, exposed edge that its original builders would not have recognised.

A ringfort, or rath, is a roughly circular enclosure dating typically to the early medieval period, constructed from earthen banks and used as a defended farmstead or settlement. This example survives in uneven condition. The bank is intact only to the north-east, where it reaches about half a metre in external height, while the remainder of the enclosure is defined by a natural or cut scarp between 0.7 and 1 metre high, with a steep drop running from the south around through the west to the south-west. The interior slopes with the natural gradient of the hill from north to south, and no outer fosse, the defensive ditch that commonly accompanies such monuments, has been identified. There is also no clear evidence of an original entrance. Roughly 400 metres to the north-west lies a separate moated site, a type of enclosed medieval settlement more commonly associated with Anglo-Norman landholders, which suggests the broader landscape here saw sustained occupation across several centuries and different cultural phases.

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