Ringfort (Rath), Cloonlagheen, Co. Mayo

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Ringfort (Rath), Cloonlagheen, Co. Mayo

At Cloonlagheen in County Mayo, a stretch of level pasture holds something quietly layered: an early medieval earthwork that has, at some point in more recent centuries, become a burial ground.

The two uses sit together without obvious ceremony, the old enclosure now containing the new dead, the whole thing wrapped in a stone field fence as if the surrounding farmland simply decided to hold its ground around it.

The site is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was the standard form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically used by farming families between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries. This one is a respectable size, measuring approximately 33 metres north to south and 36 metres east to west, with an earthen bank still standing around 1.7 metres high. To the east, a fosse, which is a defensive ditch dug outside the bank, survives to a depth of around 0.4 metres. The original entrance, 1.4 metres wide, faces the south-east and is now marked by a modern gate. The detail that sets this particular rath apart from many others is the presence of a modern burial ground inside the enclosure. This is not without precedent in Ireland; the protected, bounded nature of a ringfort interior sometimes made it an appealing location for later interment, particularly for unbaptised children in the tradition of cillíní, though the record here does not specify the nature of the burials.

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Pete F
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