Ringfort (Rath), Derreen, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Derreen, Co. Cork

In a field of pasture at Derreen in mid Cork, a faint rise in the ground is all that remains of what was once a ringfort.

A ringfort, or rath, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built during the early medieval period as a farmstead and place of security. Thousands survive across Ireland in varying states of preservation, but this one has been almost entirely reclaimed by the land around it.

The earliest firm record of this site comes from the 1842 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, which recorded it as a circular enclosure with a diameter of approximately twenty-five metres. That is modest even by the standards of ringforts, which range from small family enclosures to larger, more elaborate sites. At some point after the map was made, the earthworks were levelled, most likely through agricultural activity. What the 1842 survey caught, then, was itself probably a diminished version of the original structure. The ground today holds only the slightest memory of what stood there.

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