Ringfort (Rath), Ballynaboll, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Ballynaboll, Co. Mayo

There is a particular category of historical site that exists more in paperwork than in the physical world, and the ringfort at Ballynaboll in County Mayo belongs firmly to it.

Where there was once a rath, a type of circular earthwork enclosure typically dating from the early medieval period and used as a farmstead or family settlement, there is now only pasture on a low rise, with no visible trace remaining at ground level.

The site was recorded on the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps of both 1838 and 1930 as a circular enclosure of approximately 25 metres in diameter, which places it at the smaller end of the rath scale. The fact that it appeared on both map editions suggests it was still legible as a feature well into the twentieth century, but at some point between then and now it was levelled entirely, most likely by agricultural activity. That process, the gradual erasure of earthworks through ploughing, drainage, and land improvement, has removed a considerable proportion of Ireland's early medieval landscape, and Ballynaboll is one quiet example among thousands.

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