Ringfort, Ballynaskeagh, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
On a gentle swell of ground in County Westmeath, there is a ringfort that has effectively ceased to exist above the surface of the earth.
No banks, no ditches, no earthworks of any kind remain visible. What survives is cartographic: a single partial arc, representing only the eastern half of a circular enclosure, drawn on the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1837 and never repeated on any subsequent edition.
Ringforts, the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Ireland typically defined by one or more circular earthen banks, are among the most common archaeological monument types in the country. This one in Ballynaskeagh appears to have been largely lost even by the time the early OS surveyors arrived. They noted only half of it, annotating it as a 'Fort' on the 1837 Fair plan map, which suggests enough was discernible to warrant recording, though not enough to capture in full. By the time later mapping generations returned to the same ground, whatever trace remained had gone entirely. The site sits on a low rise in gently undulating countryside, a landscape that offers no obvious visual clue today that anything of archaeological significance ever occupied the spot.