Ringfort (Rath), Aglish, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Aglish, Co. Clare

Most ringforts in Ireland announce themselves fairly clearly, their circular ditches and banks still legible in the landscape after more than a thousand years.

This one, sitting at the crest of a gentle south-facing slope in pasture at Aglish in County Clare, is a quieter presence. It is subrectangular rather than circular, with rounded corners and a low earthen bank that barely rises above the surrounding field. At its most prominent, the external face of that bank reaches only 0.7 metres in height. It is the kind of monument that rewards a slow look rather than a glance from a passing road.

A rath is an early medieval enclosed farmstead, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, and used as a defended homestead or agricultural enclosure from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. This particular example measures around 16.4 metres north to south and 16 metres east to west on the interior, with the enclosing bank adding several metres on each side and varying between 3.5 and 5.2 metres in width. Stones are incorporated into the bank, though the overall construction is earthen. The site was already being mapped in 1842, when it appeared on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, and it reappeared on the Cassini edition of 1920, suggesting it was consistently recognisable across that period despite its modest profile. By 1996 it was classified simply as an enclosure in the Record of Monuments and Places, a cautious designation that reflects some uncertainty about its original function. The edges of the monument appear to have suffered from field-clearance activity over the years, which may account for the partial obscuring of its form, and the interior and bank are now partly overgrown.

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Pete F
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