Ringfort (Rath), Cloghanecarhan, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Ringforts
On a south-facing terrace on the lower slopes of Foilclogh, a low arc of earthen bank is nearly all that remains of what was once a roughly circular enclosure commanding views down towards the River Inny estuary and Ballinskelligs Bay.
The bank survives for only part of its original circuit, rising less than half a metre above the interior ground level and barely more than that on the outer face. What makes the site worth pausing over is not its scale but its complexity: within the same modest footprint, it preserves traces of both a hut site and a souterrain, that underground stone-lined passage or chamber used in early medieval Ireland for storage, refuge, or both.
A rath is an earthen ringfort, the most common type of enclosed farmstead from early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth centuries. This one was already in noticeably better condition when the Ordnance Survey recorded it in 1846, showing a roughly circular enclosure of around 25 metres in diameter. By the time the surveyors returned in 1895 and 1896, the visible diameter had reduced to around 20 metres, and a field boundary had been cut across the interior off-centre towards the south-east. That boundary, running roughly north-east to south-west, is one of the more telling details: it suggests the enclosure had by then lost whatever protected or ceremonial status might have kept later agricultural activity at bay. The bank itself has continued to erode since, with only intermittent traces extending beyond each end of the surviving arc.
The hut site in the north-west quadrant and the souterrain in the western half are catalogued separately but sit within the same enclosure, hinting at a small settlement rather than a single-purpose structure. Taken together, the components suggest a farmstead of some complexity, even if what survives today reads as little more than a gentle undulation in pasture ground.