Ringfort (Rath), Carrowgarry, Co. Sligo
Co. Sligo |
Ringforts
A narrow north-south ridge in County Sligo, with the Devlin River running along its western foot, turns out to be the site of something considerably more deliberate than the landscape first suggests.
Sitting across the ridge's crest is a double-banked ringfort, a rath, whose raised interior and concentric earthworks speak to a carefully chosen and carefully engineered position. Ringforts are enclosed farmstead settlements, built largely during the early medieval period, and Ireland has tens of thousands of them, but the specifics here repay attention.
The enclosed area is roughly oval, measuring 32 metres north to south and 31 metres east to west, and its centre is artificially raised rather than simply levelled. Around it runs an earthen bank some 4.3 metres wide, whose inner face still shows traces of stone kerbing, suggesting it was once revetted in a more substantial way. Beyond that bank lies a fosse, a defensive ditch roughly 2.2 metres wide, and then a second outer bank, 3.8 metres across. Corresponding gaps, each about 3 metres wide, in the two banks at the north-west almost certainly mark the original entrance. A souterrain is also part of local tradition here; souterrains are underground stone-lined passages or chambers, typically associated with ringforts and thought to have served as places of refuge or cool storage. This one has not been formally confirmed, but its reported presence is consistent with a site of some complexity and, presumably, some standing.
The doubled bank-and-fosse arrangement sets this rath apart from the more common single-bank enclosures. Multiple banks generally indicate either greater status or a heightened concern with defence, and the deliberate raising of the interior adds to the impression of a site whose occupants meant to be seen, or at least to be secure.