Ringfort (Rath), Carrowmore, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Carrowmore, Co. Galway

What makes this particular enclosure quietly interesting is not any single dramatic feature but the layered detail that survives in a field in Carrowmore, County Galway.

The earthwork is a rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular ringfort defined by an earthen bank, and this one is noteworthy for having not one but two concentric banks with a fosse, a ditch, running between them. That double-bank arrangement placed a farmstead or settlement at the centre of two rings of defence, a configuration that tends to indicate higher social status among the early medieval communities who built such structures. The whole enclosure measures around 26 metres in diameter and is described as being in fair condition.

A few details set it apart from a straightforward example of the type. On the outer face of the inner bank, roughly at the south-southeast, there is a C-shaped depression whose purpose is not fully explained. Whether it represents a collapsed entrance feature, a later modification, or something else entirely, it introduces a small ambiguity into an otherwise legible site. At the northwest, a gap roughly two metres wide may be the original entrance through the banks, though that too remains uncertain. Inside, two large limestone blocks sit in the northwest section of the interior; these are thought to be natural rather than placed, which is a reminder that early medieval builders often worked around the existing geology rather than clearing it away. The site sits approximately 150 metres southeast of a second ringfort, suggesting this part of Carrowmore was once a settled and organised landscape rather than an isolated farmstead.

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