Ringfort (Rath), An Drom Réidh, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), An Drom Réidh, Co. Cork

On a low hillock in pasture at An Drom Réidh in west Cork, a roughly circular earthwork sits quietly in the landscape, unremarked by most of the people who might pass within sight of it.

It is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common type of archaeological monument in Ireland. These were enclosed farmsteads, built and occupied mainly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and used by farming families to protect their household, their livestock, and their status within a highly stratified rural society.

This particular example measures approximately 19.2 metres north to south and 22.3 metres east to west, making it a fairly modest but well-preserved specimen. An earthen bank, still standing to around 1.5 metres in height, traces the enclosure, and beyond it runs an external fosse, a ditch dug to reinforce the barrier, surviving here to a depth of around 0.4 metres along the western to eastern arc. A gap of roughly four metres in the bank to the south-east almost certainly marks the original entrance, the point through which people, animals, and goods would have passed in and out of daily life more than a thousand years ago. The elevated position atop a hillock is entirely typical; ringfort builders consistently favoured raised ground, which offered both drainage and a degree of visibility across the surrounding territory.

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