Ringfort (Rath), Ballyhahill, Co. Limerick

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Ballyhahill, Co. Limerick

On a north-facing slope in County Limerick, a roughly circular earthwork sits quietly in pasture, its double ring of banks and ditches largely swallowed by trees and scrub.

What makes this particular rath a little unusual is its double enclosure: two concentric earthen banks separated by a fosse, or ditch, some four metres wide. Most ringforts, the circular enclosed settlements built predominantly during the early medieval period in Ireland, make do with a single bank and ditch. A second concentric ring was typically reserved for sites of higher status, suggesting that whoever lived here occupied a position of some importance within the local social order.

The site was recorded and compiled by Denis Power, with notes uploaded in August 2011. The inner bank stands roughly half a metre high on its interior face and rises to about 2.1 metres externally, while the outer bank is just under a metre on both faces. The circular area enclosed measures approximately 26 metres north to south and 27 metres east to west, placing it in the middling range for Irish ringforts of this type. Later agricultural activity has left its mark: a field boundary now overlies the outer bank on the eastern to south-eastern side, and a second boundary abuts it at the north-west. A break in the outer bank on the north-eastern to eastern arc appears to have been made relatively recently, likely to allow livestock through.

The site sits in working farmland, so access would require the landowner's permission. The interior and both banks are heavily overgrown with trees and bushes, which means the earthworks are easier to read from a slight distance than from within. The external height of the inner bank, over two metres on its outer face, is the most legible feature from ground level. Visiting in late autumn or winter, when vegetation has thinned, would give the clearest sense of the double-bank structure. The fosse between the two banks, though partially obscured by growth, is still traceable as a depression running between the two rings.

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Pete F
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