Ringfort (Rath), Gorteennameale, Co. Laois

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Gorteennameale, Co. Laois

In the townland of Gorteennameale in County Laois, a low circular earthwork sits in the landscape with one quietly puzzling feature: nobody knows where you were supposed to enter it.

A rath, as this type of ringfort is commonly called, is an early medieval enclosure, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, built from a raised earthen bank and an outer ditch to define a farmstead or small settlement. Most retain at least some trace of a formal entrance break in the bank. This one does not.

The enclosure is subcircular in shape, roughly 54 metres across, defined by a bank about 4.3 metres wide and standing approximately 1.8 metres above the surrounding ground on the exterior. Beyond the bank runs a fosse, the outer ditch that would have emphasised the boundary and made casual entry more difficult, here measuring around 6 metres in width. The bank survives best along the northern and north-eastern arc, where the original form of the earthwork is most legible. The north-east to south-east section of the bank is absent or severely reduced, which is where an entrance might reasonably have been expected, though whether that gap is original, the result of later agricultural clearance, or simple erosion over a millennium or more remains unclear from the ground alone.

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