Ringfort (Rath), Glasnamullen, Co. Wicklow

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Glasnamullen, Co. Wicklow

What makes this small earthwork in the Wicklow uplands quietly odd is that two streams did part of the work for it.

On the north and north-east sides, the builders of this early medieval rath, a type of enclosed farmstead typically constructed between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries, appear to have relied on the natural scarp formed by the converging banks of those streams rather than digging their own defences. The confluence sits immediately to the north-north-east, and the steep drop into the watercourses would have made any additional bank largely redundant in that quarter.

Everywhere else, the enclosure follows a more conventional pattern. An oval area measuring roughly 29 metres north-west to south-east and 22 metres north-east to south-west is defined by an earthen bank, a fosse (that is, a defensive ditch), and, at the north-west, a slight outer bank running for about twelve metres. The main bank stands around a metre high on its outer face and somewhat less on the interior, while the fosse, which curves around the east, south, and north-west of the site, is two to three metres wide and still survives to a depth of about 0.6 metres. No trace of an original entrance has been identified, nor are there any visible internal features remaining. The whole structure sits on a level natural platform on a gently sloping hillside, the kind of position that would have given its inhabitants a reasonable outlook across the surrounding terrain. The rath was already recorded on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1838, confirming that it was a recognised feature of the landscape well before modern archaeological interest in such sites took hold.

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