Ringfort (Rath), Colgagh, Co. Sligo

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Ringfort (Rath), Colgagh, Co. Sligo

What makes this ringfort in Colgagh, County Sligo quietly unusual is the way its builders let the landscape do some of the work for them.

Most raths, the circular earthen enclosures that served as farmsteads for early medieval Irish families, rely on a combination of a raised bank and a surrounding ditch, or fosse, to create the boundary. Here, there is no fosse visible at ground level. Instead, the enclosure's eastern and western sides are defined by a near-vertical scarp, between one and a half and three metres high externally, carved directly from the natural hillside. The unmodified slope simply meets the bank at either end, making the ground itself the defensive feature. It is an economical solution, and one that tells you something about how resourcefully these structures were adapted to local topography.

The rath sits on a south-facing slope of gently undulating pasture, and the ground drops away sharply to the east, south-east, and west of the site. The roughly circular enclosure measures approximately 28 metres north to south and 27 metres east to west, surrounded by a broad, low bank of earth and stone around 4.6 metres wide and 0.6 metres high on the interior. No original entrance can now be made out. Within the interior, the drystone footings of a small structure survive near the south-east of centre, two sections of wall meeting at a right angle, the longer running east to west at four metres and a shorter north-south section of two metres, each around 0.6 metres thick and only 0.2 metres high at present. More intriguing still is the possible souterrain recorded towards the west-north-west of the interior. Souterrains were underground stone-lined passages or chambers, probably used for storage and concealment, and are found beneath many Irish ringforts; their presence here, if confirmed, would be consistent with a settlement of some domestic complexity.

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