Ringfort (Rath), Lurgan, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Lurgan, Co. Galway

What survives at Lurgan in County Galway is, in most directions, almost nothing at all.

A circular rath, measuring roughly 39.4 metres in diameter, once occupied this stretch of undulating grassland, but the centuries have not been especially kind to it. A rath is a type of ringfort, an enclosed settlement typical of early medieval Ireland, usually defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches surrounding a central living area. At Lurgan, the defining elements, an inner scarp, an intervening fosse (that is, a ditch), and an outer bank, can still be read in the landscape to the south. Elsewhere, they have largely disappeared. A later field bank cuts across the monument at the north and south-east, and to the east of it, no surface trace remains whatsoever.

The site was noted as long ago as 1914, when it was catalogued by Neary as entry number 154 in a list of local antiquities. By that point it was presumably already in poor condition; the steady encroachment of agricultural boundaries has since done further damage. What makes this particular spot quietly interesting is not what it contains but what it represents alongside its neighbour: another ringfort of the same class lies approximately 150 metres to the north-east. Paired or clustered ringforts are not unusual in the Irish midlands and west, and may reflect related family groups occupying adjacent enclosures, though the relationship between the two at Lurgan is not documented in any detail.

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