Ringfort, Ashfield, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
On an east-facing slope in the grassland of Ashfield, County Galway, there is an oval earthwork that has managed to survive in unusually good condition.
What makes it quietly interesting is not just its age or scale, but the layered record of human activity compressed within its banks, a place where early medieval settlement and later agricultural hardship have left marks on the same ground.
The site is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was the standard form of rural enclosure during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries. Raths typically served as farmsteads, protecting a family's home and livestock within a raised earthen bank. This example measures approximately 39.5 metres north to south and 34 metres east to west, defined by two concentric banks with an intervening fosse, the ditch dug between or around the banks to reinforce the boundary. A gap on the eastern side may represent the original entrance. Tucked into the south-western quadrant is a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage of the kind often built beneath early medieval settlements, used variously for storage, refuge, or ventilation of subterranean chambers. Beyond these early medieval features, the interior tells a later and more troubled story. A series of penannular banks and fosses, arc-shaped earthworks that do not complete a full circle, are most likely the remains of lazy-beds, the ridge-and-furrow cultivation system associated with potato farming and most visibly with the landscape pressures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their presence inside the rath suggests the enclosure was pressed into agricultural use long after its original purpose had passed, its ancient banks perhaps offering some shelter or simply marking out convenient ground.
The rath sits in open grassland and faces east down the slope, which would make the morning light useful for anyone trying to read the earthworks. The concentric banks are the clearest feature to trace from the outside, while the interior disturbance from the probable lazy-beds is most apparent once you are within the enclosure and looking for the subtler undulations beneath the grass.