Ringfort (Rath), Ballinriddera, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
On a ridge in County Westmeath, the ground still holds the outline of a life lived inside an earthen circle.
This rath, a type of ringfort consisting of a raised bank and enclosing ditch used as a farmstead during the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1200 AD, sits on the north-western face of a ridge running south-east to north-west, set into pasture-land that has preserved its form remarkably well. What makes it quietly worth attention is the precision that survives: a sub-circular enclosure measuring approximately 27 metres north-west to south-east and 28 metres north-east to south-west, enclosed by an earthen bank that remains well preserved along the eastern and southern sides, with a wide fosse, or ditch, that runs deepest at the same points.
The eastern side holds the original entrance, a narrow gap of about 1.8 metres across, reached by a causeway spanning the fosse at 4.4 metres wide. That causeway is not incidental; it is a deliberate feature, the single controlled point of access across a ditch designed to make entry on your own terms. Inside, the ground slopes noticeably from south-west to north-east, and in the north-western quadrant of the interior, traces of a hut site are still visible, a reminder that this enclosure was not ceremonial but domestic, someone's yard and home. To the south-south-west, a smaller enclosure once adjoined the site, though that has since been levelled and survives only as a reference in the archaeological record. A modern field fence now cuts across the monument at its western side, the ordinary business of farming intersecting, as it so often does in Ireland, with something considerably older.
