Ringfort (Rath), Ballynamaddree, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Ballynamaddree, Co. Cork

Beneath a pasture on a south-facing slope in Ballynamaddree, County Cork, lies a ringfort that has effectively ceased to exist above ground, yet continues to appear in the archaeological record.

There is nothing to see here now, which is precisely what makes it worth knowing about. The site has been fully levelled, leaving no visible surface trace, and yet its outline persists in maps and inventories, a ghost of an enclosure that farming and time have quietly erased.

A ringfort, or rath, is one of the most common early medieval monument types in Ireland, typically a circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used as a farmstead or place of habitation from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. This particular example was recorded on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1842, where it appears as a hachured circular enclosure of approximately twenty metres in diameter. By the time later editions of the same map were produced, the southeast side had already been removed, suggesting that the earthwork was being progressively destroyed across the nineteenth century. The process continued until nothing remained at ground level.

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