Ringfort (Rath), Ballyvaughan, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Ringforts
Most ringforts announce themselves through earthworks alone, but the rath at Ballyvaughan in County Tipperary is built with an unusually high stone content, its bank studded with protruding stones that give it a distinctly rubble-like texture quite different from the cleanly earthen profiles common elsewhere.
It sits on flat, level ground to the north of an east-west running ridge, settled into pasture as if it has simply always been there, which in a sense it has.
A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century, and thousands survive across Ireland in varying states of preservation. This example is roughly circular in plan, measuring approximately 33 metres north to south and 34 metres east to west. The bank is best preserved in the western quadrant, where it runs to a crest width of about 2.4 metres and a base width of 5.6 metres, broad and noticeably flat-topped. Its internal height is around 0.6 metres and its external height 0.7 metres, modest figures that suggest considerable slumping over the centuries. A possible entrance, about 2 metres wide, lies in the eastern quadrant, which is a common orientation for ringfort entrances. Despite scrub growth colonising parts of the bank, stretches of it remain clear enough to read the structure without difficulty.