Ringfort (Rath), Ballymore, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
In the reclaimed farmland around Ballymore in County Galway, there is a ringfort that has, for all practical purposes, ceased to exist.
Not ruined, not overgrown, but entirely gone from the surface, absorbed into agricultural land to the point where nothing visible remains to mark it. That absence is itself a kind of record.
A ringfort, or rath, is one of the most common monument types in the Irish landscape, a roughly circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank and ditch, typically dating from the early medieval period and associated with farmsteads or small settlements. This one was recorded by McCaffrey in 1952, who classified it as an earthen fort, though with a notable detail: what remained of the enclosing bank at that time, a stretch of around 35 metres, appeared to be stone-faced, suggesting a more substantial construction than a simple earthen mound. By the time of later survey work, even that remnant had vanished. The land had been reclaimed, the bank levelled, and whatever the stone-facing once looked like was gone.