Ringfort (Rath), Breaghwy, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
In the pastureland of Breaghwy, a low north-to-south ridge carries a circular earthwork that has quietly outlasted the civilisation that built it.
What makes this rath, a type of enclosed ringfort typically used as a defended farmstead during the early medieval period, particularly interesting is not any single dramatic feature but the way it has been absorbed into the working landscape around it. The outer banks at the northern and southern ends have been folded into modern field fences, and two deliberate breaks cut through the external bank at the south-east and south-west allow farmers to move across the fosse from one side of the field to the other. The fosse itself, the broad ditch between the inner and outer banks, has been left with vertical-cut faces in these crossing points, giving the ancient earthwork an oddly utilitarian afterlife.
The structure is well-preserved for most of its circuit. The inner bank measures roughly 38 metres across in both directions, with an external height on the western side of around 2.8 metres, and remnants of internal stone facing survive in places, suggesting the earthen bank was once reinforced with dressed or laid stone. The fosse is broad and flat-based, up to 5.3 metres wide on the southern side, and the external bank beyond it is substantial in its own right. At the north-east, where the inner bank drops to a low scarp, a 2-metre gap aligns with a corresponding gap in the outer bank, and there is a faint trace of a causeway crossing the fosse at this point, which is likely where the original entrance stood. A second gap in the inner bank at the south-west complicates the picture slightly, though whether this was an original feature or a later modification is unclear. The interior is open grassland, and the entire perimeter is densely grown over with hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, and brambles, a thorny collar that has probably discouraged casual interference for centuries. A stream runs along the base of the ridge slope to the north-east, and there are open views to the east from the raised ground.