Ringfort (Rath), Corrspark, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Corrspark, Co. Galway

What makes this particular earthwork quietly remarkable is not just its age or its condition, but the fact that it sits within a landscape already marked by its own kind, with a second ringfort lying some 200 metres to the west.

Two such sites in close proximity hints at a once-inhabited countryside whose social arrangements we can now only partially read from what survives above ground.

A rath is a ringfort of earthen construction, typically dating to the early medieval period in Ireland, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, and serving as an enclosed farmstead for a family of some local standing. This example at Corrspark measures 35.5 metres in diameter and is considered well-preserved. It is defined by a raised bank and an external fosse, which is a surrounding ditch, the spoil from which would originally have built up the bank. The enclosure is not uniform in character around its full circuit: the bank survives most clearly from the west, running through the north and around to the north-east, while elsewhere the boundary survives as a scarp, a naturally eroded slope rather than a constructed wall of earth. A gap on the north-north-west side appears to be of modern origin, likely a later intrusion into the structure rather than an original entrance.

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