Ringfort (Rath), Inchagreenoge, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ringforts
At Inchagreenoge in County Limerick, there is a ringfort that cattle have been slowly dismantling for years.
The earthen bank that once enclosed this roughly circular enclosure, measuring just under thirty metres across, has been breached and worn down by generations of livestock moving freely in and out. The largest gap, about two metres wide, sits at the southeast, and the interior beyond it is boggy, heavily churned by hooves, and increasingly obscured by briars and bushes. It is the kind of place that looks, at first glance, like an unremarkable lump in a field.
Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when built from earth rather than stone, were the most common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth centuries. They served as farmsteads, their banks and ditches defining a family's living space and offering a degree of protection for people and livestock. The example at Inchagreenoge sits at the southern end of a low north-to-south ridge in undulating pasture, a position that would have offered modest elevation and drainage advantages to its original occupants. The external fosse, a shallow ditch running from the northeast around to the east-southeast, is still traceable, though at just twenty-five centimetres deep it has suffered considerably. The notes compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011 record that field boundary clearance material has been dumped in the eastern quadrant, adding modern disturbance to centuries of agricultural wear.
The site sits in ordinary farmland and is not formally managed or signposted, so access depends on the usual courtesies of the Irish countryside, including seeking permission from the landowner before entering any field. The interior is boggy underfoot and heavily poached by cattle, so sturdy footwear is worth considering regardless of the season. What remains worth observing is the profile of the bank where it is best preserved, particularly on the northern arc, where the difference in height between the interior face and the exterior face gives some sense of how substantial the original enclosure would have been. The fosse to the northeast, though shallow, is still legible as a feature if you know to look for it at ground level rather than from a distance.