Ringfort (Rath), An Leac Mhór, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), An Leac Mhór, Co. Cork

At An Leac Mhór in County Cork, a ringfort sits in active tillage land on a south-south-west-facing slope, its circular earthen bank quietly absorbing the routines of a working farm.

What makes the place quietly odd is the degree to which agriculture has grown around and even into it. Farm buildings have been constructed into the eastern side of the enclosure, and a laneway serving the farm skirts the bank to the south. The ringfort has not been preserved apart from ordinary life; it has simply been incorporated into it.

A rath, as this type of monument is classified, is an early medieval enclosure, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century, defined by one or more earthen banks and used as a farmstead or high-status residence. This example is modest in scale, with a circular interior of approximately thirty metres in diameter and an internal bank height of around 1.6 metres. The bank is stone-faced on its exterior, which gives it a degree of structural solidity unusual in purely earthen examples. Trees have been planted on the inner face of the bank, and the interior itself is given over to coniferous planting. On the southern side, the interior has been raised to compensate for the natural fall of the hillslope, a small but telling piece of deliberate earthworking that suggests care in the original construction. Whatever stood inside this enclosure more than a thousand years ago, its builders were working the same slope that tillage farmers work today.

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