Ringfort (Rath), Clonickilvant, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
On a gentle rise in the rolling pasture of County Westmeath, there is a ringfort that managed to escape cartographic attention entirely.
Neither the Ordnance Survey's six-inch map of 1837 nor the revised twenty-five-inch edition of 1913 recorded it, which is a peculiar fate for a structure that would once have been a prominent feature in the landscape. Ringforts, sometimes called raths, are roughly circular or oval enclosures defined by an earthen bank and an outer ditch, known as a fosse; they were built in their thousands across Ireland during the early medieval period, typically serving as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or small community. That this one went unrecorded for so long speaks to how thoroughly a monument can be worn down into its surroundings.
When the site was formally described in 1972, what remained was an oval enclosure measuring approximately 35 metres north to south and 23.4 metres east to west. The enclosing bank had been reduced to little more than a scarp along its western and eastern arcs, though the fosse was still legible across the western and north-western portions. The original entrance had been lost entirely, and quarrying had damaged both the southern and north-eastern sectors. Inside, the surviving ground slopes gently eastward, with rock breaking through the surface in places. A small earthen bank, just six metres long and barely 0.3 metres high, sits in the southern quadrant, and short lengths of bank persist on the exterior at the south-west and north. A stone wall cuts across the southern side on an east-west alignment, evidence of later agricultural use overwriting the earlier form. From the air, the monument is barely legible: aerial photography reveals it mainly as a roughly oval cluster of trees.
The site commands good views in all directions from its raised position, which would have made practical sense for whoever built it. Today that same elevation means the tree-planted oval can potentially be picked out from nearby ground level, though the earthworks themselves require a careful eye and some patience to read against the surrounding pasture.