Ringfort (Rath), Barleyhill, Co. Meath

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Barleyhill, Co. Meath

In the mixed woodland of Barleyhill, a low circular rise in the ground marks the remains of an early medieval ringfort, its earthworks now softened by centuries of vegetation but still legible to anyone who knows what to look for.

A ringfort, or rath, was a farmstead type common across Ireland roughly between the sixth and twelfth centuries, consisting of a raised central enclosure defined by one or more banks and ditches. Most were the homes of farming families of modest or middling status, and tens of thousands of them once dotted the Irish landscape. This one sits quietly on a north-northwest to south-southeast ridge, with higher ground rising around it, absorbed now into the wood rather than commanding any obvious view.

The earthworks here are modest but reasonably well preserved, particularly on the northwestern and western sides. The interior platform measures roughly thirty metres across, and the surrounding bank still stands to an external height of nearly three metres at its highest point on the northwest. Between that inner bank and an outer bank beyond it runs a rounded fosse, the term for the ditch that was typically dug to provide material for the bank itself. A slight berm, a narrow flat shelf of ground, separates the fosse from the outer bank on the eastern and southern sides. The entrance, about 1.8 metres wide at its base, faces north-northeast, and faint traces of a causeway crossing the fosse survive there. On the north-northwest to southeast arc, the outer bank gradually merges into what is now a field boundary, a quiet reminder of how these ancient features were so often recycled into the practical landscape of later centuries.

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