Ringfort, Littletown, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Ringforts

Ringfort, Littletown, Co. Westmeath

In a field on the demesne lands of Littletown House in County Westmeath, the outline of an ancient enclosure survives, invisible at ground level but legible from the air.

Aerial photography reveals an oval earthwork roughly 60 metres across on its north-south axis and 54 metres east to west, the kind of scale that places it firmly among the larger examples of its type. Ringforts, which are enclosed farmsteads typically dating from the early medieval period, were once so common across Ireland that nearly 50,000 have been recorded, yet a great many have been ploughed out or built over. This one endures, at least as a cropmark or soil shadow, on land that has been in managed use for centuries.

The setting adds a quiet layer of complexity. Littletown House lies around 210 metres to the north-north-west, its avenue still traceable, and a tree-ring dating to after 1700 survives just 64 metres to the west, suggesting the landscape was being formally organised and planted during the Georgian era even as the older earthwork remained underfoot. Closer still, roughly 170 metres to the north-west, lies the site of Littletown Castle, a reminder that this particular patch of Westmeath has attracted settlement across a considerable span of time. The proximity of a ringfort, a castle site, and a post-medieval demesne in such a compact area is not unusual in Ireland, where layers of occupation tend to accumulate in places with good land and reliable water, but it is rarely so neatly legible in a single view.

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Pete F
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