Ringfort, Drinaun, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Ringforts

Ringfort, Drinaun, Co. Galway

What survives at Drinaun in County Galway is not a monument in any dramatic sense, but rather the ghost of one.

A circular rath roughly 48 metres in diameter sits in the landscape, its original form largely absorbed by later field boundaries. A rath is an early medieval enclosure, typically earthen, built to define a farmstead and mark its status in a society where boundaries carried legal as well as practical weight. Here, a raised bank still traces part of the circuit, but from the south around through the west to the north it has been overlain by a field bank, the kind of quiet agricultural overwriting that happened across Ireland for centuries as earlier features were pressed into service for later land management.

Where the bank disappears, a scarp, a natural-looking slope in the ground that is actually the eroded remnant of the original enclosing earthwork, takes over as the defining edge. On the western side, a band of distinctive vegetation growing just outside that scarp may mark the course of a fosse, the external ditch that would once have accompanied the bank, giving the enclosure its full defensive and symbolic profile. The site sits approximately 320 metres south-east of another ringfort in the same townland, which suggests this was once a settled and organised patch of countryside, with multiple enclosures in relatively close proximity.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Ringfort, Drinaun, Co. Galway. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement