Ringfort (Rath), Lisdromacrone, Co. Leitrim

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Lisdromacrone, Co. Leitrim

On top of a drumlin in County Leitrim, a nearly perfect circle of grass and reeds marks out a space that has been enclosed, defined, and inhabited for perhaps a thousand years or more.

The enclosure measures twenty-five metres across in both directions, and its earthen bank, though low, is still clearly readable in the landscape, rising to a maximum of around half a metre on its outer face at the north-west. A band of reeds, two to three metres wide, traces the outer edge of the bank, and together these features give the site its quietly legible geometry.

This is a rath, the most common type of ringfort in Ireland, typically dating from the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Raths were generally the enclosed farmsteads of prosperous families, the bank and ditch serving as a boundary marker and a modest defence against cattle raiders rather than a serious military fortification. Sitting on the crest of a drumlin, one of the smooth, elongated hills shaped by glacial deposition across much of the Irish midlands and north, this particular example would have commanded a useful view of the surrounding terrain. No original entrance has been identified, which is not unusual where bank surfaces have been worn or disturbed. A later field boundary, running north-east to south-west, has slightly clipped the southern perimeter, a small reminder of how agricultural reorganisation in more recent centuries has quietly reshaped early medieval edges.

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Pete F
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