Fort, Curraghfore, Co. Leitrim

The grass has long since claimed it, and without a certain quality of low raking light or a familiarity with what to look for, it is easy to walk past entirely. What gives it away, if anything does, is a band of noticeably lusher vegetation curving around its northern, southern, and western sides, the tell-tale sign of a fosse, the ditch that once defined the outer boundary of the enclosure. Fosses of this kind were typically dug to throw up the material used in constructing the bank beside them, and here that bank survives most clearly along the northern arc, where it still stands to an external height of just over a metre.

The earthwork itself is roughly circular, measuring about 32 metres across north to south and just under 31 metres east to west, dimensions that place it comfortably within the range of the ringfort, one of the most common monument types in the Irish archaeological record. Ringforts, also known as raths or cashels depending on whether they were built of earth or stone, functioned primarily as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1200 AD, though some may be older. The bank here is overgrown and in places has eroded to little more than a low scarp, between 45 and 65 centimetres high on its less well-preserved sides. No original entrance has been identified, which is not unusual where centuries of agricultural activity have disturbed or levelled the approach. What is unusual, or at least notable, is the presence of old quarry-holes in the western and north-western portion of the interior, suggesting the site was dug into at some point, whether for building material, out of curiosity, or for reasons now unrecoverable. An old stream or drain running roughly north-east to south-west passes just outside the perimeter to the north-west, a small hydrological detail that may or may not have influenced the original choice of location.