Ringfort (Rath), Ballymartin, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
What makes this low mound in the pastureland near Ballymartin quietly arresting is not spectacle but interior complexity.
Rising 3.4 metres above the surrounding field level, it sits in undulating ground close to the road, looking from a distance like little more than a raised hump of grass. Step closer, and the structure reveals itself: a roughly circular enclosure, about 29 metres north to south and 35 metres east to west, bounded by an earthen bank with a fosse (a defensive ditch) and an additional outer bank running along the western side.
Inside the enclosure, two subrectangular hut sites survive with enough definition to read clearly on the ground. The smaller of the two, on the western side, measures roughly 3 by 2.8 metres and is outlined by a low earthen bank. Beneath or adjacent to it lies a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage of the kind commonly associated with early medieval ringforts in Ireland, probably used for storage or as a place of refuge. The second hut site, considerably larger at around 12 by 6 metres, occupies the north-eastern part of the interior; its walls are now sod-covered stone foundations, the masonry hidden under centuries of growth. A ramp entrance, 2.5 metres wide, opens on the east-south-east. A second ringfort sits approximately 150 metres to the south, suggesting this stretch of Mayo countryside was once a more densely settled landscape than its present quietness implies.