Ringfort (Rath), Cloonloum More, Co. Clare

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Cloonloum More, Co. Clare

What makes this site quietly arresting is not what survives but what barely does.

In a rough pasture field in Cloonloum More, County Clare, the remains of an early medieval ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century, have been worn down to the point where much of the enclosing bank has all but merged with the ground. The oval outline, measuring approximately 32 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, is now little more than a low scarp, in places no higher than 20 centimetres. Dense briars obscure what remains of the south-western arc, and the northern and south-eastern sections have been almost entirely levelled. Only a scatter of thorn trees, growing intermittently along the line of the old bank, trace the circuit where earthwork no longer can.

The enclosure would originally have been defined by a raised bank, or rath, with an outer ditch, known as a fosse, dug to provide the material for building it up. Here the fosse is still faintly traceable along the northern half of the monument, though it has been reduced to a barely perceptible depression, around five metres wide but only five centimetres deep in places. The interior slopes gently down toward the south-south-west and is waterlogged and heavily poached by livestock, which gives some sense of how thoroughly the land has been returned to ordinary agricultural use over the centuries. What makes the location additionally unusual is the proximity of two further ringforts, sitting just 18 metres and 45 metres to the north-east respectively, suggesting this corner of Clare was once a more densely settled early medieval landscape than its current emptiness implies.

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