Ballyfintan Fort, Ballyfintan, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
In the undulating pastureland of south Galway, a low circular earthwork sits on a south-facing slope, easy to overlook and easier still to misread as a natural feature of the ground.
It is a rath, a type of enclosed farmstead typical of early medieval Ireland, usually dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century. A rath generally consists of a circular bank and ditch enclosing a domestic space, and at its height would have sheltered a family, their livestock, and their small-scale agricultural activity. This one measures about thirty-four metres in diameter, which places it within the ordinary range for such sites, though ordinary is perhaps the wrong word for something that has persisted in the landscape for the better part of a millennium.
What survives here is fragmentary. An earthen bank defines the circuit from the north-east, around the southern arc, and back to the north-west, but elsewhere the enclosure is marked only by a scarp, a natural-looking slope in the ground that is actually the eroded remnant of the original boundary. A field boundary, presumably of much later date, cuts across the monument at both the north-east and north-west, which is a common fate for earthworks in agricultural land where each generation of farming has quietly rearranged the ground. There is also a wide gap on the south-south-east side, roughly six metres across, which may represent an original entrance or simply a point where the bank has been worn away over centuries of use and weather.