Ringfort (Rath), Leaffony, Co. Sligo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Leaffony, Co. Sligo

In a grazing field in Leaffony, about 150 metres south of the Cabragh River, the ground rises almost imperceptibly into a circle.

Without knowing what to look for, you might walk across it without a second thought. What you would be crossing is a rath, an earthen ringfort, the kind of enclosed farmstead that was home to ordinary farming families across early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Thousands survive in various states of preservation around the country, but this one is quietly dissolving back into the landscape it came from.

The site measures about 23.5 metres across from east to west. On its western side, the original enclosing bank still survives, though in a degraded state, rising less than two-thirds of a metre on its outer face and half a metre on its inner face, with a width of around 2.5 metres. The eastern half of the circuit has fared less well; there the bank has worn away entirely and is marked now only by a low scarp, a slight step in the ground no more than half a metre high. The interior of the enclosure tilts gently downward toward the east. Just outside the southern arc of the bank, a small raised feature, roughly four metres at its widest, sits obscured beneath overgrowth. It is most likely a field clearance heap, the accumulated result of generations of farmers pulling stones from nearby ground, though its position so close to the monument gives it an air of ambiguity that the vegetation does nothing to resolve.

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Pete F
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