Ringfort (Rath), Annagloor, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Annagloor, Co. Cork

Beneath a stand of coniferous trees in a North Cork pasture, a low earthen ring holds its shape after more than a thousand years.

The bank is only about 1.2 metres high now, worn down and partially absorbed into the modern field fence system that runs from the north around to the south-west, yet the circle it describes is still legible on the ground, roughly 40 metres across in either direction. A shallow ditch, or fosse, once ran around the outside; only faint traces of it remain. A gap two metres wide in the north-western bank may mark the original entrance, the point where a family or small community once passed in and out of a defended farmstead.

This is a rath, the most common type of early medieval settlement monument in Ireland. Typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century, raths were circular enclosures defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used as farmsteads by free farming families. What makes the Annagloor example particularly interesting is what lies at its centre: a souterrain. These are underground stone-lined passages or chambers, usually constructed during the same period as the ringfort itself, and their exact purpose has been debated by archaeologists for generations. They may have served as cool storage for dairy produce, as refuges during raids, or as both. The interior surface of this one is uneven, and the trees planted across it have further obscured whatever surface features might once have been visible, but the souterrain survives beneath it all.

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