Ringfort (Rath), Cartron, Co. Longford
Co. Longford |
Ringforts
There is nothing to see at Cartron any more, and that absence is itself the point.
Somewhere beneath the grazing pasture in this part of County Longford, a ringfort has effectively ceased to exist above ground, levelled until no trace of it remains visible at surface level. It is the kind of erasure that happened quietly across Ireland throughout the twentieth century, as agricultural land was consolidated and ancient earthworks got in the way.
A survey recorded in 1975 caught it just before it became truly lost. At that time, the site sat on a low knoll in pasture and comprised a raised circular area roughly 33 metres in diameter, enclosed by a low bank of earth and stone with a shallow external fosse, the term for the ditch that typically rings such enclosures on the outside. A ringfort, or rath, is a farmstead type common throughout early medieval Ireland, usually dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, built to enclose a family's dwelling and livestock within an earthen boundary. Even by 1975, the entrance to this particular example could no longer be identified. By the time anyone thought to look more carefully, the bank and fosse had been levelled entirely.