Ringfort (Rath), Ballingarry, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Ringforts
Most ringforts, the roughly circular earthwork enclosures that served as farmsteads across early medieval Ireland, survive as raised features in pasture, their banks still reading clearly against the grass.
This one in Ballingarry, County Cork, tells a slightly different story. It sits in tillage ground, and the plough has been at it for long enough that what was once a substantial enclosing bank now barely clears knee height at its tallest point.
The site is oval rather than truly circular, measuring approximately 52 metres east to west and 40 metres north to south. The enclosing bank survives at a maximum height of only 0.8 metres, and its outer base has been cut back considerably by repeated ploughing, giving it a cropped, eroded profile. The interior is saucer-shaped, dipping gently toward the centre in the way that often develops when bank material slowly migrates inward over centuries of cultivation pressure. There are two gaps in the bank. The one to the south-west may be an original entrance, though it is difficult to say with certainty given the degree of disturbance. The second, to the north-north-west, appears to have been created deliberately at some point, with the displaced bank material pushed inward to form a low mound in the interior, an alteration whose purpose is now unclear but which adds a minor puzzle to an already well-worn site.