Ringfort (Rath), Dunmoylan, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ringforts
A ringfort in County Limerick that quietly carries a reputation as a burial place for children is not the sort of site that appears on any itinerary.
The tradition was recorded in the Ordnance Survey Name Books, volume one, page 105, where it is noted plainly that this fort was said to have been used as a burying place for children. Whether those interments were the unbaptised infants consigned in folk practice to liminal ground, or something else entirely, the record does not elaborate. No trace of burials is now evident, though the interior is so thickly overgrown that absence of evidence is not quite the same thing as evidence of absence.
The site itself is a rath, the earthen form of ringfort that was the standard enclosed farmstead of early medieval Ireland, typically dating to somewhere between the sixth and tenth centuries. This particular example sits on a gentle north-facing slope in Dunmoylan, its oval enclosure measuring roughly 34.5 metres north to south. The structure is defined by a scarped inner edge, an outer earthen bank, and an intervening fosse, the shallow ditch between them running about 2.6 metres wide. The scarp stands clearest along the southern arc, rising to around half a metre, and flattens considerably toward the north. The outer bank, which reaches nearly a metre on its interior face, has been partially overlain by a ruinous stone wall running from the north-north-west to the north-east, suggesting some later reuse or modification. A clear break in the bank on the eastern side, around 2.5 metres wide and matched by a corresponding dip in the scarp, marks what was almost certainly the original entrance.
The fort sits in pasture, contained within a small field immediately south of a public road, which makes it relatively straightforward to locate. Access, as with so many such sites, depends on the cooperation of whoever farms the land. The interior is heavily overgrown with dense vegetation, which limits what can be seen directly underfoot, though the encircling earthworks are legible enough from the perimeter. The southern arc of the scarp offers the clearest reading of the original form. The ruinous stone wall running across the bank on the northern side is worth looking for as a distinct later layer laid over the older earthwork, a reminder that these structures rarely passed through the centuries unused.