Ringfort (Rath), Derrygrath, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Derrygrath, Co. Tipperary

Three ringforts within 35 metres of one another is not something you encounter every day.

On a south-facing slope just off the crest of a ridge in County Tipperary, this rath sits flanked by two near-neighbours, one barely 9 metres to the north-west and another only 34 metres to the south. Whether this concentration reflects a single extended family farming the same ridge over generations, or some other arrangement of early medieval landholding, is not recorded, but the clustering alone makes the spot quietly anomalous in a landscape of undulating pasture.

A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of early medieval Ireland, typically a roughly circular area defined by an earthen bank and, sometimes, an outer ditch. This example is approximately 36 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west, its bank built from earth and stone, still standing to an external height of 1.3 metres and measuring up to 3.2 metres at its base. A gap of about 1.5 metres in the north-east quadrant is considered a possible original entrance. The centuries since occupation have not been especially gentle: cattle have broken through the bank in at least two places, small-scale quarrying has disturbed the south-west quadrant, and the south-east portion of the bank has been levelled altogether. The interior is now dense scrub, with whitethorn growing thickly around the bank and brambles smothering the southern side. From within that tangle, or from the ridge above, Nicholastown Castle is visible on a hill some 1.5 kilometres to the south-west, a reminder that this corner of Tipperary continued to be contested and occupied long after the ringfort era had passed.

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