Ringfort (Rath), Bargarriff, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
In the pasture at Bargarriff, a pair of concentric earthen banks and a deep flat-based fosse quietly describe a circle that has sat in this Mayo hillside for well over a thousand years.
What makes this particular rath, or ringfort, worth pausing over is the layered precision still legible in the ground: two banks, a well-defined ditch between them, a causeway of scattered stones leading to a narrow entrance gap at the east-south-east, and a second, wider break on the western side. The whole structure straddles a south-facing terrace, and the natural fall of ground on the southern arc gives the outer bank an unusually pronounced exterior slope, so that the site reads differently depending on from which direction you approach it.
A bivallate rath, meaning one enclosed by two concentric banks rather than the single bank more commonly seen, tends to be associated with higher-status settlement in early medieval Ireland, roughly the period from the fifth to the twelfth century. The platform interior here measures roughly thirty-one metres north to south and thirty metres east to west, a fairly generous subcircular space. The outer bank retains drystone facing on parts of its inner face, a construction detail that suggests deliberate engineering rather than simple earthmoving. The entrance arrangement is particularly clear: a gap of about 1.7 metres in the inner bank, a stone-strewn causeway crossing the fosse, and a broader corresponding break of 3.4 metres in the outer bank, all aligned to catch the view that opens up to the south-east and west across what is now level, somewhat wet pasture. Oak and hazel ring both banks today, with mossy undergrowth, and loose moss-covered stones scatter across the slopes and into the fosse.
One feature in the interior remains unexplained. In the south-east quadrant, a low sod-covered linear scarp about two metres wide and no more than thirty centimetres high runs for eight metres on a roughly north-north-east to south-south-west axis before turning east for a further two metres at its northern end, with stones protruding from its southern tip. Whether this represents an internal structural element, a later intrusion, or something else entirely is uncertain. It is the kind of quiet puzzle that rewards close attention on the ground, visible but not immediately interpretable, the rath still holding at least one thing back.