Ringfort (Rath), Carrick, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Carrick, Co. Tipperary

A small coniferous plantation now fills the interior of this early medieval enclosure on a north-west-facing hillside in County Tipperary, which means the trees have effectively become the most visible sign that something deliberate once happened here.

The plantation was laid out as a tree-ring, a practice of planting in a circle that was common in the Irish landscape, and it happens to follow the line of the original enclosure with an odd kind of accidental fidelity.

The site is a rath, the most common type of ringfort in Ireland, typically built as a farmstead enclosure during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. It takes the form of a roughly circular area approximately forty metres across, defined by a low earthen bank, now heavily denuded, with some stone visible within it. Outside the bank runs a fosse, a drainage and boundary ditch, though this has silted to a shallow depth of about thirty-five centimetres and disappears entirely on the upslope side in the south-east quadrant, where erosion or agricultural activity has long since smoothed it away. A gap of just under two metres in the north-west sector is interpreted as a possible original entrance. What makes the immediate setting worth noting is the presence of a standing stone roughly one hundred metres upslope to the west. The proximity of the two monuments raises questions about deliberate placement within the landscape, though whether the relationship between them was functional, ceremonial, or simply a matter of convenient topography is not recorded.

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Pete F
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