Dogs Fort, Shangarry, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Ringforts

Dogs Fort, Shangarry, Co. Galway

On a prominent hill in the pastureland of Shangarry, County Galway, sits a ringfort that has held its shape remarkably well across more than a thousand years.

Known locally as Dogs Fort, the site is a roughly circular rath, around 35 metres in diameter, defined by two earthen banks with a fosse, or ditch, running between them. That double-bank arrangement would once have made this an imposing enclosure, the kind of defended farmstead that early medieval Irish families built to protect themselves, their livestock, and their social standing.

The entrance survives as a causewayed gap on the east-south-east side, just 1.6 metres wide, narrow enough to control who and what passed through. Beneath the interior, in the north-west quadrant, lies a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber that was typically used for storage or as a place of refuge during attack. These subterranean features are common companions to raths across Ireland, though they are not always visible at ground level. One later intrusion is more immediately obvious: a field wall has been built directly over the outer bank, running from the south, around through the west, and up to the north, a reminder that the land has continued to be farmed long after the fort's original purpose was forgotten.

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