Ringfort (Rath), Cahernaman, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
A circular earthwork roughly 48 metres across sits on a low rise in the pastureland of Cahernaman, Co. Galway, quiet enough that it might be mistaken for a natural feature of the ground.
It is a rath, the most common form of early medieval enclosure in Ireland, built by banking up earth into a roughly circular boundary that would once have enclosed a farmstead or the dwelling of a local family of some standing. Thousands of these survive across the country, in varying states, and this one is in fair condition, its defining bank still legible in the landscape.
What gives it a particular texture is the evidence of later use cutting straight through it. The foundations of a field wall, running from the north-northwest and from the south-southeast, cross the monument, the practical demands of post-medieval farming geometry taking little account of whatever significance the enclosure once held. Inside the rath, in the northwest quadrant, two hollows survive in the ground. Their origin is unrecorded; they may represent the collapsed remains of internal structures, or pits of some kind, though nothing in what is presently known confirms either reading. The overlap of early medieval construction, later agricultural division, and these unexplained depressions gives the site a layered quality that is easy to overlook from a distance.