Ringfort (Rath), Carrowmore, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Carrowmore, Co. Mayo

On a ridge in Carrowmore, Co. Mayo, a roughly circular earthwork sits in pasture, its original entrance so thoroughly obscured that cattle now push through a narrow break at the south-south-east as though it were always meant for them.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the type of enclosed farmstead that was built in its thousands across Ireland during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. What makes this one quietly absorbing is the degree to which it has been absorbed into the working landscape around it, its ancient banks now doubling as property boundaries, topped with post and wire fencing and fringed with gorse.

The site takes the form of a near-circular platform, measuring just over thirty-one metres north to south and thirty metres east to west. It is defined by a bank or scarp, with a fosse, meaning a defensive ditch, running around the outside. A fosse was typically dug to provide material for the bank and to add an obstacle to anyone approaching. Here, the bank survives most clearly on the north-east to south-east arc, where it reaches an external height of around 1.3 metres and a width of 3.7 metres, while elsewhere it has been reduced to a low scarp. The fosse is most legible on the south-west side, where it presents as a shallow depression roughly three metres wide, with stones protruding from its slope and a low stony lip along its outer edge; these features are thought to be the result of more recent modification rather than original construction. On the eastern half, the ditch has all but disappeared. A tumbled field wall cuts across the south-west of the interior on a north-west to south-east axis, a reminder that the enclosure has served different purposes across the centuries. The ridge itself commands good views to the north-east, with a river lying about 300 metres to the south-west and a stream a similar distance to the north-east, a positioning that would have made practical sense to whoever chose this spot.

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Pete F
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