Ringfort (Rath), Clonsilla, Co. Wexford

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Clonsilla, Co. Wexford

On a north-facing slope in County Wexford, a gently sunken oval in the grass marks out a space that most people walking past would read as a natural dip in the ground.

It is, in fact, the remains of a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead that was the standard form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically consisting of a circular or oval area ringed by one or more earthen banks. This one measures roughly 56 metres east to west and 49 metres north to south, defined now by a low scarp rather than the more pronounced bank it would once have had, with surviving traces of that bank still visible at the east and north-west.

What makes this site quietly interesting is partly what it lacks. By the time the Ordnance Survey produced its six-inch mapping of the area in 1940, the enclosure was already notable enough to record, but it appears on no earlier edition. The northern side of the bank has a wide breach roughly 20 metres across, and the formal entrance, at roughly 10 metres wide, also sits at the north. That alignment is not uncommon in Irish ringforts, where entrances facing north or east appear with some regularity, though the reasons are debated. Whether the breach and the entrance are related features, or whether the gap represents later damage to the bank, the site now presents as a calm, grass-covered hollow, its agricultural origins legible only if you know what to look for.

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Pete F
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