Ringfort (Rath), Ballyfinegan, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
What survives at Ballyfinegan is not one ringfort but two, joined together in a configuration that was never especially common and is now rarely encountered in anything like readable condition.
A rath, to use the Irish term, is a roughly circular earthen enclosure, typically defined by a bank and a surrounding ditch known as a fosse, and associated with early medieval farmsteads in Ireland. Here, two such enclosures sit conjoined on a gentle rise above undulating grassland, their outlines still legible despite considerable wear.
The southern enclosure is the larger of the pair, measuring roughly 41 metres north to south and 37 metres east to west, with an entrance gap of about 3.5 metres at its southern side. Its bank and fosse survive best along the arc from the north-east, around through the east, and down to the south-west. The northern enclosure is somewhat smaller, around 34 metres east to west and 28 metres north to south, and retains traces of two banks with a fosse running between them, its entrance facing east at a width of approximately 4 metres. The double-bank arrangement of the northern section is a detail worth noting: multiple banks were sometimes associated with higher-status settlements in the early medieval period, though whether that applies here is a matter the surviving earthworks alone cannot settle. Complicating the picture further, a later field bank has been laid across the remains, running from the south-east around through the south and on to the west-north-west, obscuring the enclosing elements in those sections and contributing to the site's generally eroded appearance.