Ringfort (Rath), Ballymorrisheen, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ringforts
There is something quietly disorienting about standing in a field where a settlement once existed and finding almost nothing to show for it.
At Ballymorrisheen in County Limerick, a ringfort, the type of circular earthwork enclosure used as a farmstead during Ireland's early medieval period, has been reduced to little more than an uneven rumple in the ground. The bank and ditch that would once have defined its boundary have been levelled, leaving the land looking, to an untrained eye, simply lumpy and ill-drained.
The site was recorded on the 1923 Ordnance Survey six-inch map as a roughly circular enclosure with a diameter of approximately twenty metres, which is relatively modest even by the standards of these features. It sits on a west-facing slope that drops away into marshy ground below. At some point between that mapping and the present, the enclosure was levelled, most likely through agricultural improvement. Denis Power, who compiled the record uploaded in August 2011, noted that while the ground surface in the vicinity remains noticeably uneven, with low humps and hollows distributed across the pasture, no clear outline of the original enclosure could be made out during survey.
The field is in pasture, which at least means the ground has not been ploughed flat. Visitors with an interest in landscape archaeology may find it worth pausing here simply to understand what erasure looks like in practice. The undulating surface is suggestive rather than legible; you are reading absence more than presence. The marshy ground to the west can make the lower part of the slope soft underfoot, particularly after wet weather, so appropriate footwear is sensible. There is no formal access or signage, and the site sits on private farmland, so permission should be sought before entering. What remains is less a monument than a faint geological memory, the kind of place that rewards patience and a good map more than it rewards expectation.