Ringfort (Rath), Ballincolla, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Ballincolla, Co. Cork

What makes this modest enclosure in the Ballincolla pastureland worth a second look is the quiet structural puzzle it presents: partway around its perimeter, the boundary simply changes material.

An earthen bank gives way to a stone wall, as if two different building decisions were made at different times, or by different hands.

The site is a rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular enclosure built during the early medieval period, typically between the sixth and twelfth centuries, and used as a farmstead by a single family or small community. This example sits on a break in a north-facing slope, its slightly raised interior measuring around 24 metres north to south and 26 metres east to west. The earthen bank, standing about 1.4 metres high and stone-faced in places, runs from the west-south-west around to the north, where a freestanding stone wall, a fraction taller at roughly 1.5 metres, takes over and continues back around to the west-south-west. A gap of about 3.5 metres in the south-south-east portion of the boundary would originally have served as the entrance. Beneath the interior, a souterrain, that is, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber commonly associated with Irish ringforts and likely used for storage or as a place of refuge, runs below ground, its presence hinting at the everyday domestic concerns of whoever lived within these walls.

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Pete F
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