Ringfort (Rath), Ballynora, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Ballynora, Co. Cork

In the pastureland above Ballynora, a circular earthen bank has been quietly holding its shape for well over a thousand years.

The enclosure measures roughly 33 metres across, its bank rising nearly two metres on the outside, with a shallow ditch, or fosse, running around the southern and western arc. Two gaps break the circuit, one to the north and one to the south, the northern opening just wide enough for a person to pass through with room to spare. The interior has gone partly to scrub and overgrowth, but the geometry of the place remains legible in the landscape.

This is a rath, the most common monument type in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century. A rath is an enclosure formed from a raised earthen bank and an outer ditch, and was ordinarily the fortified farmstead of a single family or small community, the bank serving as much to define status and territory as to provide serious military defence. What makes this particular example quietly interesting is the souterrain recorded in its south-western quadrant. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, usually associated with ringforts of this period, and thought to have served variously as a refuge, a cool store for dairy produce, or both. Their presence tends to suggest a settlement of some substance, one where the occupants had reason and resources to invest in something built beneath the ground as well as above it. The south-facing slope on which the rath sits would have offered good light and drainage, practical considerations that early farmers understood as well as anyone.

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