Ringfort, Gortnahorna, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort, Gortnahorna, Co. Galway

In the grassland of Gortnahorna, a low rise in the ground conceals the remains of an early medieval settlement, and at its centre sits something that draws the eye: a keyhole-shaped mound of stone, its purpose unclear, its form precise enough to suggest it was once deliberate.

That combination, a barely-there enclosure and a strangely shaped feature within it, gives this otherwise quiet site an odd quality that sets it apart from the thousands of similar earthworks scattered across Ireland.

The site is a rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank and sometimes a ditch, typically associated with early medieval farmsteads built between around 500 and 1200 AD. This one sits on a natural hummock in slightly undulating ground, which would have given it a modest elevation above the surrounding landscape. It measures approximately 32 metres east to west and 27 metres north to south, making it a fairly modest example of the type. Much of its defining bank survives only along the south-west, west, and northern arc; elsewhere the boundary has degraded into a scarp, a slope in the ground rather than a raised feature. A six-metre gap on the eastern side may represent the original entrance, which in raths of this kind was often oriented roughly eastward. The keyhole-shaped stone mound in the northern half of the interior is harder to explain with confidence. It may be a collapsed structural feature of some kind, though its distinctive shape is unusual enough to warrant attention.

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Pete F
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