Ringfort (Rath), Knockacarrigeen, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Knockacarrigeen, Co. Galway

On the upper south-east-facing slopes of Knockacarrigeen in County Galway, there is a ringfort that exists now only on paper.

The Ordnance Survey six-inch maps record it as a circular enclosure roughly 45 metres in diameter, but no visible surface trace survives today. It is, in a sense, a place defined entirely by its absence, known only because cartographers once thought it worth marking down.

A rath, to use the Irish term, was a type of enclosed farmstead typical of the early medieval period, usually defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches surrounding a domestic settlement. That this one has vanished so completely is itself notable. What the maps also suggest is that it sat on or immediately outside the boundary wall of a much larger hilltop enclosure nearby, which points to a more complex landscape than a single isolated farmstead would imply. A second enclosure lies just 25 metres to the south-east, meaning this unremarkable hillside slope once held at least three distinct enclosed spaces in close proximity to one another. Whether these were contemporary, or built across different periods with different purposes, is not recorded, but the clustering alone hints at sustained activity on this ground over a considerable stretch of time.

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