Ringfort (Rath), Carrownaboll, Co. Sligo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Carrownaboll, Co. Sligo

On a narrow ridge in the undulating pasture of Carrownaboll, a small ringfort sits with a quiet geometric logic that rewards a careful look.

A ringfort, or rath, is a roughly circular enclosed settlement of early medieval Ireland, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, and once serving as a farmstead or place of modest status. This particular example occupies the very spine of its ridge, using the natural fall of the ground to do some of the defensive work for it.

The enclosed area measures approximately 12.5 metres north-northeast to south-southwest and 9.7 metres west-northwest to east-southeast, a modest oval raised slightly above the surrounding terrain. A bank of earth and stone, between three and four metres wide and up to a metre high, curves around from the northeast through south to the north-northwest, while elsewhere the steep natural scarp of the ridge effectively replaces the need for a constructed bank. Where the enclosure cuts across the ridge at its eastern and western ends, a wide fosse, essentially a defensive ditch, five metres across and a metre deep, reinforces the approach. There are faint traces of a possible counterscarp bank just beyond the ditch, suggesting the original arrangement may have been more elaborate than what survives. A terrace, three metres wide, sits at the southern foot of the bank, though neither fosse nor terrace appears at the north, where the ridge itself presumably offered sufficient natural protection. At the south-southeast there is a gap in the bank just over a metre and a half wide, which might represent an original entrance, though no causeway crosses the ditch to confirm it. The interior ground is noticeably uneven, hinting at features beneath the surface that have yet to be examined.

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Pete F
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