Ringfort (Rath), Dunnaman, Co. Limerick

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Dunnaman, Co. Limerick

A ringfort that did not exist, as far as the Ordnance Survey was concerned, until the final years of the nineteenth century is already a curious thing.

The 1840 edition of the six-inch map shows no trace of this enclosure in the Dunnaman townland of County Limerick, yet by the time the twenty-five-inch edition appeared in 1897, surveyors had recorded an oval earthwork roughly 42 metres across, with noticeably angular edges along its western side and a surrounding fosse. Whether the site was simply missed in the earlier survey, or whether the scrub and pasture concealed it sufficiently to fool a passing cartographer, is not recorded.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, were typically the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, built from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. They generally consist of a raised circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches. The Dunnaman example sits on a gentle north-east-facing slope with reasonable views in most directions, a positioning that would have suited a farming family alert to the movements of livestock and neighbours alike. When the Archaeological Survey of Ireland inspected the site in 2000, their team described a slightly raised circular platform with an internal diameter of around 29 to 30 metres, bounded by a scarped edge and an external fosse measuring just over five metres wide. A southern entrance gap of approximately four metres was identified. A water-filled field boundary, running north-west to south-east, cuts along the north-east side of the monument between the scarped edge and the fosse, complicating the picture slightly. The interior at that time was level, wet underfoot, and clear of undergrowth. The site does not exist in isolation; a mound lies around 450 metres to the north-north-west, and a second ringfort sits roughly 380 metres to the east-south-east, all within reach of the River Maigue, which flows approximately 375 metres to the north-east.

By the time Google Earth imagery was captured in 2018 and again in 2020, the interior had become heavily tree-covered, which means the open, legible quality noted by the ASI two decades earlier may no longer apply. The site lies in agricultural pasture, and access would require permission from the landowner. Those approaching from the direction of the Maigue will find the ground sloping gently away from the river, with the earthwork sitting quietly in the field without any formal marker or signage to draw attention to it.

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