Ringfort (Rath), Tobernagauhoge, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
A ringfort that has been quietly cannibalised by the landscape around it sits on the north-eastern side of a gentle rise in Tobernagauhoge, County Westmeath.
What survives is a roughly circular enclosure about 33 metres in diameter, its earth and stone bank in places worn almost entirely down to a scarp, a term for a steep slope or near-vertical face left when an earthwork is eroded or cut away. The northern and western stretches of the perimeter have been absorbed into modern field fences, while a substantial portion running from the north around to the east has been quarried away, the damage extending deep into the north-eastern quadrant. There is no visible trace of an external fosse, the defensive ditch that would typically encircle a rath of this kind, and the original entrance can no longer be identified.
Ringforts, known variously as raths or cahers depending on whether they were built from earth or stone, were the most common form of enclosed farmstead in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. This one was recorded in 1971 and again in 1976, by which point surveyors already described it as much disturbed. The best-preserved arc runs from the east-south-east around through the south to the west, where the bank retains something closer to its original steep profile. The interior, what remains accessible of it, carries a gentle slope facing west-north-west. The site has good views to the north, east, and west, a quality that would have mattered to whoever chose this spot, since visibility and a degree of natural elevation were practical advantages for an early farming household keeping watch over livestock and land.