Fort, Tawnaleck, Co. Leitrim

Co. Leitrim |

Ringforts

Fort, Tawnaleck, Co. Leitrim

In the townland of Tawnaleck, a low circular bank sits quietly in the grass and rushes, its original entrance long since lost to time.

What makes this place quietly compelling is precisely that loss: a ringfort, the type of enclosed farmstead that was the dominant form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, reduced now to a gentle swell in the ground that most walkers would step over without a second thought.

The fort occupies the southern end of a slight ridge on an east-facing slope, a position that would have offered both drainage and a modest outlook across the surrounding landscape. The enclosure is roughly circular, measuring around 26 metres north to south and 24 metres east to west internally. Its defining feature is an overgrown bank, about 4.4 metres wide, which rises only 20 centimetres above the interior but a more substantial metre above the exterior ground level. That asymmetry is typical of ringfort construction: the bank was formed by digging out material and throwing it outward, creating a more imposing face to the outside world. Where the original entrance once broke this circuit, nobody can now say with certainty.

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Pete F
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