Ringfort (Rath), Carrowkeale, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Ringforts
A modern road running north to south has sliced clean through the eastern half of this early medieval ringfort in the uplands of Carrowkeale, leaving only a semicircle where a complete enclosure once stood.
The effect is quietly disconcerting: the surviving earthworks describe half a shape, like a sentence cut off mid-thought, and the missing portion now exists only as tarmac and verge.
Ringforts, sometimes called raths when constructed primarily from earth and stone rather than timber, were the most common form of enclosed farmstead in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth centuries. This example sits on a west-facing slope of rising ground, the kind of elevated position that would have offered both drainage and a degree of visibility across the surrounding landscape. What remains measures around twenty-two metres across on its north-south axis, and the enclosure was originally defined by two concentric banks with a fosse, or ditch, running between them, the fosse here measuring about one and a half metres wide and three-quarters of a metre deep. Double-banked ringforts are generally considered to indicate a site of some status, the additional earthwork requiring considerably more labour to construct. The inner bank survives best at the southern end, where it still rises to between twenty centimetres and half a metre on its outer face, with traces of the outer bank also legible at the south. No entrance feature has been identified in what remains. A second ringfort lies a short distance to the north, suggesting this upland area once supported at least two separate enclosed settlements in relatively close proximity.
