Ringfort (Rath), Carrowbeg, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Carrowbeg, Co. Mayo

On the western edge of Swinford, a low knoll in a pasture field holds a ringfort that has been quietly absorbed into the modern landscape without anyone making much fuss about it.

Bungalows sit ten to fifteen metres from its eastern side, and at its northern base a working equestrian yard and stables carry on their daily business. The rath, a type of enclosed farmstead typically dating from the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, occupies ground that now also supports blackthorn scrub and hazel thicket dense enough to make a close inspection genuinely difficult.

The enclosure is a broadly oval raised platform, roughly 33 metres across its longer axis, defined by a scarp, essentially a steep earthen drop at the perimeter, that reaches about 1.8 metres in height at its south-southeast side. On the western arc, the natural slope of the knoll adds considerably to the apparent height of this drop, while the eastern half is lower and less clearly defined, with a rougher, stonier face. A shallow depression just inside the rim at the south runs around part of the perimeter, and in places along the south and southwest the scarp is capped with a rough scatter of stones. What may be a souterrain, an underground passage sometimes found within ringforts and used for storage or refuge, is suggested by a hollow that opens near the northwest scarp and extends several metres into the interior before widening into a shallow depression on the rising ground. Notably, a field boundary at the north and northeast has been built to follow the curve of the rath precisely, meaning the fort's outline has quietly shaped the local field pattern even as the modern world closed in around it. A second rath lies just 70 metres to the south-southwest, making this a corner of Carrowbeg with an unusually concentrated early medieval presence.

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Pete F
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