Ringfort (Rath), Reynella, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
Tucked into a south-west facing slope above the quiet southern shoreline of Lough Reynella in County Westmeath, this early medieval enclosure has an unexpected neighbour: an eighteenth-century ice house, marked on old maps simply as a 'Cave'.
The pairing of an ancient ringfort and a post-1700 cold-storage structure on the same patch of ground gives the site an oddly layered quality, two very different kinds of practical architecture occupying the same gentle hillside centuries apart.
A ringfort, or rath, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank and, typically, an outer ditch called a fosse. They were built in their thousands across Ireland during the early medieval period, serving as farmsteads or the enclosed residences of local families of some standing. This example sits on the demesne lands of Reynella House, some 410 metres to the north, and its remains are well preserved by local standards. The enclosure is sub-circular in plan, measuring approximately 24 metres north to south and 26 metres east to west, and the surrounding bank still stands up to a metre in height. A wide fosse runs around the outside, and at the north-east there is a clearly defined entrance gap nearly three metres wide, with a causeway of similar width crossing the ditch at a height of around 45 centimetres. The ice house nearby post-dates 1700 and belonged to Reynella House; such structures were used by landed estates to store blocks of ice cut from frozen lakes or ponds during winter, keeping food cool through the warmer months. That it was labelled a 'Cave' on period maps suggests it was either misidentified or that its true function was not widely known beyond the estate itself. The site is now partly enclosed within a modern forestry plantation, which has altered its setting considerably.