Ringfort (Rath), Conagher, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Conagher, Co. Galway

Beneath the grassland at Conagher, there may be a tunnel.

The earthwork above ground is already substantial enough to reward attention: a subcircular ringfort measuring roughly 94 metres across its longest axis, defined by two concentric banks with a fosse, the ditch between them, separating them. But it is the probable souterrain within the interior that gives the site an additional layer of quiet intrigue. Souterrains are underground stone-lined passages, typically associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, thought to have served for storage, refuge, or both. This one has yet to be fully confirmed, but its presence is considered likely.

The rath sits on a north-west-facing slope in grassland, positioned so that it looks out over bogland to the north-west, a setting that would have given its original occupants both a degree of natural drainage on the slope and a clear view across the lower, wetter ground below. As with many ringforts of this type, the monument has been worn and altered by centuries of agricultural activity. Field boundaries cut across it at the north-east and south, and to the east of these boundaries no surface trace of the original earthwork survives. The inner bank remains visible at the west, but elsewhere the enclosing element has been reduced to a scarp, with sections quarried away at the west-south-west and north. A field wall has been built directly over the outer bank on the southern and western sides, and a gap at the west is considered modern in origin. What remains is, in the words of those who recorded it, in fair condition, which in archaeological terms means enough survives to read the form, even if the full circuit is no longer intact.

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