Ringfort (Rath), Garrysallagh, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
What makes this ringfort in Garrysallagh unusual is not any single dramatic feature but rather its position within a cluster.
Three ringforts sit within roughly 180 metres of one another on and around a low ridge in County Westmeath, which points to a concentration of early medieval settlement activity that was anything but accidental. Ringforts, sometimes called raths, are roughly circular enclosures defined by an earthen bank and an outer ditch, known as a fosse; they served as farmsteads and homestead enclosures during the early medieval period, broadly from around 500 to 1000 AD, and they are among the most common monument types in the Irish landscape. Finding three in such close proximity raises questions about family groupings, territorial organisation, or successive phases of occupation that no surface survey alone can answer.
This particular example sits on the crest of the ridge and measures approximately 34 metres north to south and 32 metres east to west, making it a moderately sized sub-circular enclosure. The earthen bank survives well in places, though along the south-eastern to south-western arc it has been worn down to little more than a scarp, and the fosse is most clearly visible on the north-western to north-eastern side, partially silted up elsewhere. The north-eastern to south-eastern quadrant has suffered more deliberate interference: quarrying has removed sections of both the perimeter bank and part of the interior. Inside, the ground slopes gently towards the south-east, and faint traces of cultivation ridges running east to west are still legible in the surface, suggesting the enclosed space was put to agricultural use at some point, whether during the monument's original occupation or in a later period when its protective function had long been forgotten.