Fort, Aghnagollop, Co. Leitrim
Co. Leitrim |
Ringforts
Most ringforts in Ireland announce themselves with a raised bank and a ditch, the ditch being the fosse, that outer cut in the earth which once made the interior harder to rush.
The fort at Aghnagollop in County Leitrim does without both. What survives is a grass-covered circular platform, roughly twenty metres across, defined only by a low scarp, a gentle slope in the ground rather than any formal wall or earthen rampart. There is no visible fosse and no identifiable original entrance. It sits quietly in the landscape, doing very little to explain itself.
Ringforts, sometimes called raths, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and its ancillary buildings within an earthen boundary. Most are found on elevated or well-drained ground. This one occupies a notably low-lying position, with a small stream running northeast to southwest just to the southeast. The scarp varies in height around the circuit, from around half a metre on the northern side to just over a metre to the east and south, suggesting either differential survival or an original design that responded to the natural contours of the site. The surrounding bushes have helped preserve the outline, though they also obscure it. Michael J. Moore recorded and described the site in the Archaeological Inventory of County Leitrim, published by the Stationery Office in Dublin in 2003.