Ringfort (Rath), Derrydooan, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Derrydooan, Co. Westmeath

What survives at Derrydooan is only just recognisable as what it once was, and that near-disappearance is itself part of what makes it worth noticing.

A rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular earthen enclosure used typically as a defended farmstead during the early medieval period, would once have presented a clear bank and ditch to anyone approaching across the surrounding pasture. Here, that legibility has largely gone. The southern arc of the bank has been almost entirely worn away, further sections have been disrupted by modern activity, and quarrying has eaten into both the bank and the interior at the south-west. What remains is fragmentary, and yet the underlying shape of the place still holds.

The enclosure sits on a gentle natural rise in quietly undulating farmland in County Westmeath, with bogland lying around 200 metres to the west. The site is roughly D-shaped rather than circular, measuring approximately 47 metres across, with a notably straight edge along the eastern side. Where the earthen bank survives, it runs to about five metres in width. A shallow external fosse, essentially a defensive ditch dug to accompany the bank, is still visible at the northern side, and a gap there may mark the original entrance. Inside the enclosure, faint traces of cultivation ridges suggest the ground was worked at some point after the ringfort's primary use had ended. More puzzling is an L-shaped bank within the interior, which does not obviously correspond to any standard feature of rath construction and whose purpose remains unclear.

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Pete F
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