Ringfort (Rath), Lisrobin, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Lisrobin, Co. Cork

Above a steep slope dropping down towards a tributary of the Owenkeel River in north Cork, a circular earthwork sits in rough pasture, quietly holding its shape despite the best efforts of a 1988 field clearance operation.

What survives is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the type of enclosed farmstead that was the standard unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Thousands once existed across the country; a great many have been lost to exactly the kind of agricultural intervention that struck this one.

The Lisrobin rath is a modest but legible example. The enclosed area measures 37 metres across in both directions, making it a roughly symmetrical circle. Its earthen bank still stands to an internal height of just over two metres, and an external fosse, a defensive ditch, runs along the western and northern sides, surviving to a depth of about 1.75 metres. The interior is saucer-shaped, dipping gently inward, and there is a break in the bank on the eastern side roughly 8.5 metres wide, most likely the original entrance. Beneath the surface, or what remains of it, there may also be a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber used in early medieval settlements for storage or concealment. In 1988, the site was levelled during field fence clearance carried out by the Office of Public Works, which accounts for the diminished condition of what had presumably been a more pronounced earthwork.

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