Ringfort (Rath), Irishtown, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Irishtown, Co. Westmeath

On a west-facing slope in County Westmeath, surrounded by unremarkable grassland, a faint circular outline in the ground marks what was once an enclosed settlement of the early medieval period.

It is easy to miss, and that is precisely what makes it interesting. The earthwork measures roughly 25 metres across and belongs to the category of monument known as a rath or ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead typically built between the sixth and tenth centuries, when such structures were the standard form of rural settlement across Ireland. Thousands survive in various states of preservation, but this one has been worn down to the point where only a careful eye will catch the difference between archaeology and ordinary landscape.

What remains is a low bank, much of it reduced to little more than a scarp, the gentle sloped edge that is all that survives when an earthen bank has eroded over centuries. There are faint traces of an external fosse, the shallow ditch that would originally have run around the outside of the bank and provided the material to build it up. More telling is the evidence of internal stone facing visible along the north-east to south-west arc of the bank, suggesting that the original structure was reinforced with stonework rather than built from earth alone. The interior is uneven and holds scattered dumps of stone, remnants perhaps of whatever stood inside. Along the north-eastern edge, a later field boundary has cut across and partially levelled the monument's perimeter, the kind of quiet, incremental damage that has reshaped countless such sites across the Irish countryside over the centuries since they fell out of use.

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Pete F
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