Ringfort, Ballinderry, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
Beneath a modern housing estate in Ballinderry, County Westmeath, lies a ringfort that has not been visible at ground level for some years.
A ringfort, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a roughly circular enclosure bounded by earthen banks or ditches, constructed during the early medieval period and used variously as a farmstead, a place of shelter, or a site of social significance. Thousands survive across Ireland, but this one has been quietly swallowed by suburban development, leaving no surface trace.
The fort appears on the 1837 Ordnance Survey Fair Plan map, annotated simply as "Fort", which suggests it was a recognisable local landmark at that time. By the revised 1913 edition of the OS 25-inch map, it was recorded as a roughly circular enclosure with a diameter of approximately 49 metres, with a quarry already cut into its south-western quadrant. That quarrying may have begun the slow process of degradation that development later completed. Aerial photography now shows only the rooftops and gardens of the housing estate that occupies the site, with nothing to indicate what lies, or once lay, beneath.