Ringfort (Rath), Derrydonnell More, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Derrydonnell More, Co. Galway

In the mixed farmland of Derrydonnell More, a low arc of earth and stone marks the outline of a life lived well over a thousand years ago.

The feature is easy to miss, partly because it is genuinely worn down by time, and partly because a later field wall has been driven straight through it, cutting across the monument at its north-west and southern edges as though the ancient enclosure were simply another obstacle to be tidied away.

What survives is a subcircular rath, roughly 24.5 metres east to west and 22 metres north to south, defined by a stone-faced earthen bank and an external fosse, the shallow ditch that once reinforced the bank's defensive or territorial function. The fosse is the more legible element today, surviving along the south-western to north-western arc. A possible entrance gap, about four metres wide, can be identified at the north-north-west. Raths of this kind were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and its inhabitants, and they survive in their thousands across the country, though rarely in pristine condition. This one was documented by Cody in 1989, who recorded it as poorly preserved even then, suggesting the encroachment of modern agriculture had already done considerable work by that point.

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