Ringfort (Rath), Bartoose, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Bartoose, Co. Tipperary

A broad ramp on the southern side of this low earthwork still marks what was almost certainly the original entrance, a detail that gives this modest ringfort in Bartoose, County Tipperary, a quiet legibility that many similar sites have lost.

A ringfort, or rath, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built predominantly during the early medieval period in Ireland and used as a farmstead or high-status settlement. This one sits atop a gentle rise in undulating pasture, its interior tilting slightly to face the south-southwest, a common preference in early medieval construction that maximised light and shelter.

The raised platform measures approximately 22 metres north to south and 20 metres east to west, and its defining earthen bank, properly described as a scarped edge, ranges between 1.7 and 2.4 metres in height and five to six metres in width. On the northeastern to eastern side, this edge has been cut back and straightened where a farm track running roughly northwest to southeast has encroached on the monument over time. It is a familiar kind of damage, gradual and unspectacular, the sort that accumulates across generations of practical agricultural use rather than any single act of clearance. Despite this, the southern entrance ramp survives at around nine metres wide, an unusually generous opening that suggests deliberate, considered construction rather than a simple gap in the bank.

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Pete F
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