Ringfort (Rath), Cleaveragh Demesne, Co. Sligo
Co. Sligo |
Ringforts
On the south-eastern edge of Sligo Town, within what is now a public park, a circular earthwork sits on a low rise with an uninterrupted view north towards the Dartry Mountains.
It is easy to walk past without quite registering it. Trees have colonised the interior and the surrounding bank, overgrowth has swallowed much of the structure, and the whole thing has the look of a slightly raised, saucer-shaped clearing rather than anything deliberately built. That quality of near-invisibility is, in a sense, the point: this is a rath, an early medieval ringfort, and these earthworks were so thoroughly woven into the Irish countryside that thousands of them survived simply by being unremarkable.
A rath is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and external ditches, used during the early medieval period as a farmstead or settlement. This one measures approximately thirty metres in diameter. Its enclosing bank is broad, around five and a half metres wide, and rises to about one and a half metres on the exterior at the northern arc, where a fosse, a wide shallow ditch, remains visible as a gentle depression some five to six metres across. The interior slope of the bank has slumped considerably over the centuries, blending smoothly into the enclosed ground and giving the rath that distinctive dish-like form. The site sits on what was formerly the demesne land of Cleveragh Estate, and beech and chestnut trees were planted within the enclosure at some point during that period of private ownership, with sycamores and hawthorn marking the perimeter. The estate grounds have since passed into public use, and the park now extends to the banks of the Garvoge River, roughly five hundred metres to the east.
The rath is accessible within the park and the elevation it occupies, modest as it is, gives a clear northern prospect across to the Dartry Mountains. The overgrowth that has accumulated across the bank and interior makes close inspection difficult, but the northern arc rewards careful attention: it is there that the fosse is most clearly legible, and where the external height of the bank is best appreciated.