Ringfort, Lecarrowmactully, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
In the gently undulating grassland of Lecarrowmactully in County Galway, a low circular bank describes the outline of a life lived more than a thousand years ago.
The earthwork is a rath, the most common type of ringfort in Ireland, essentially a circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank and an outer ditch, known as a fosse, that would once have enclosed a farmstead or small settlement during the early medieval period. This particular example has not fared especially well against the centuries.
The rath measures 28.7 metres in diameter, and what remains is overgrown and poorly preserved. The external fosse, the defensive ditch that would originally have run around the perimeter, survives only along the western to north-western arc. The bank itself is interrupted in several places, though the breaches appear to be modern intrusions rather than the slow work of time, which gives the site a slightly altered quality, its ancient geometry interrupted by comparatively recent disturbance. It is a modest presence in the landscape, easy to overlook, which is perhaps part of what makes it worth pausing over. Thousands of ringforts once dotted the Irish countryside, and a great many have been erased entirely by agriculture or development. Those that persist, however degraded, hold the faint outline of an organised, settled world.