Ringfort, Cunnagher, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort, Cunnagher, Co. Mayo

A field boundary in County Mayo has quietly arranged itself around something much older.

The townland line at Cunnagher bends to follow the curve of an ancient earthwork, and a bye-road skirts respectfully around its western edge, as if local geography has been making small accommodations for this structure for centuries without anyone making a fuss about it.

The site is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead typically built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. This one sits on the eastern slope of a north to south ridge, positioned to command wide views across the landscape to the northeast and east, with Levallinree Lough visible roughly 760 metres away. The enclosure is oval in plan, measuring approximately 35 metres east to west and 30 metres north to south, and is defined by an earth and stone bank around two metres wide. The bank stands about one metre above the interior ground level and one and a half metres above the exterior, which is a modest but deliberate profile. Sections of it, particularly from north-northwest around to north-northeast, and from east-southeast to southwest, retain traces of possible stone facing on both inner and outer faces, suggesting the original construction was more substantial than what survives today. There are gaps in the bank at the southwest, northeast, and east, at least one of which may represent an original entrance. The interior is level and gives nothing away, and the whole perimeter is now ringed with thorn bushes, which have a way of colonising these sites and making them feel simultaneously protected and slightly unapproachable.

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Pete F
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