Ringfort (Rath), Cahernamona, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Cahernamona, Co. Galway

In the level grassland of Cahernamona, a low grassy bank traces the rough outline of a life that ended over a thousand years ago.

The rath here, a type of enclosed farmstead built during the early medieval period, is not dramatic in appearance; its roughly circular earthwork has slumped and worn to the point where a later field wall has simply been laid on top of the western arc, as though the landscape quietly absorbed one era into the next without ceremony.

The site measures approximately 29 metres east to west and 25 metres north to south, making it a modest example of the form. What distinguishes it slightly from a simple earthwork is the presence of a souterrain in the western half of the interior. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, typically associated with early medieval settlements in Ireland, and likely used for storage or as a place of refuge. Thousands of raths survive across Ireland in varying states of preservation, and this one falls toward the more eroded end of that spectrum, its defining bank degraded enough that the overall shape requires some patience to read on the ground.

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Pete F
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