Ringfort (Rath), Roesborough, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Roesborough, Co. Tipperary

A slight rise in a Tipperary pasture field is not an obvious place to look for early medieval settlement, but that is precisely where this oval ringfort sits, quietly surviving in undulating farmland at Roesborough.

A ringfort, or rath, was a circular or near-circular enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, and used as a defended homestead for a family and their livestock. Thousands of them once dotted the Irish countryside; this is one of the less conspicuous survivors.

The enclosure measures roughly 26 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, an oval shape defined partly by a bank and partly by a scarp, the two meeting to trace most of the circuit. The bank itself is modest by the standards of the type, standing only around 1.2 metres above the external ground level, with a fosse, or ditch, some 8 metres wide running alongside it, though now worn to a shallow 0.25 metres deep. A second, outer bank, even lower in profile, can still be traced around portions of the perimeter, suggesting this was once a bivallate ringfort, one enclosed by two concentric earthworks rather than one. A probable entrance gap, roughly 1.75 metres wide, opens to the west, and a short linear feature in the same sector may relate to it. The bank shows cattle breaches at intervals of a metre or so and has been worn down considerably along its south-south-eastern to south-south-western arc. The interior slopes gently toward the east, is covered in tussocks of rough grass, and contains a depression running broadly south to west to north-east, the origin of which is unrecorded. To the west-south-west, a low saddle connects the monument to a nearby pond.

The monument sits in ordinary farmland, and from a distance there is little to distinguish it from a natural undulation in the field. The defining characteristics to look for are the slight but consistent rise of the outer edge, the shallow fosse just beyond it, and the traces of the outer bank describing its arc across the pasture. The tussocky interior and the worn section of bank to the south give a sense of how gradually and quietly these structures diminish over time.

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Pete F
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