Ringfort (Rath), Calliaghstown, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Calliaghstown, Co. Westmeath

On a south-west facing slope in the Westmeath townland of Calliaghstown, there is nothing much to see.

That, in a way, is the point. A ringfort once occupied this ground, a circular earthwork enclosure of the kind built across Ireland during the early medieval period, typically serving as a farmstead enclosed by an earthen bank and ditch. By some point between 1966 and 1970, it had been levelled entirely. What remains today is not a monument but an absence, legible only as a faint band of differential grass growth, a slightly clayey strip about two and a half metres wide where the fosse, the surrounding ditch, was filled in. The soil, disturbed during the levelling, still yields fragments of charcoal and bone.

The site had a longer decline than a sudden one. The 1837 Ordnance Survey six-inch map recorded a roughly oval enclosure, approximately 42 metres north to south and 37 metres east to west, with a townland boundary cutting through its western side. The OS Fair Plan map of the same year showed something more suggestive: a circular enclosure with a small circular feature at its centre, possibly the outline of a house site. By the time the revised 25-inch map was produced in 1913, the monument had already begun to lose definition, depicted then as a penannular earthwork, that is, a near-complete ring open on one side, with the eastern edge apparently missing. A field inspection in 1963 described it as an old farmyard, a rather nondescript enclosure roughly 43 paces across, with the uphill end undefined and the lower south-western end banked up with small field stones to create a level space. Square building foundations, each side about nine or ten paces, sat at the centre. It was not dramatic, but it was still there. A second ringfort survives approximately 80 metres to the south-east, a reminder of how densely such sites were once distributed across this landscape.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Ringfort (Rath), Calliaghstown, Co. Westmeath. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement