Ringfort (Rath), Coolbaun, Co. Kerry

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Coolbaun, Co. Kerry

A ringfort that was described in the 1840s as "handsome" is not one you would necessarily pick out today.

Sitting on a low hillock in undulating pasture near Coolbaun in County Kerry, this circular earthwork now serves as much as a cattle yard as anything else, its bank broken by numerous gaps where animals move through. Concrete fence posts have been driven into the earthen bank and into the interior, and modern field boundaries extend outward from the structure to the north-east and south-east, weaving the ancient enclosure into the working geometry of a contemporary farm.

A rath, to give it its Irish name, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches. They are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, numbering in the tens of thousands, yet each one represents a family settlement that may have been occupied for generations between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries. This particular example is a substantial one: roughly 37 metres across from north to south, with a bank nearly five metres wide and standing about 1.6 metres above the surrounding ground on its outer face. A scarp, essentially a steep earthen slope rather than a built bank, defines the south-east to south-west arc. The interior sits slightly elevated above the external ground, and a small mound of around three metres by two metres survives in the south-west quadrant, though its origin is not recorded. When Ordnance Survey officers were gathering local information in the 1840s, they noted a "handsome" rath positioned nearly in the centre of the Kilcummin townland; the dimensions and location of this site make it the most plausible candidate for that description. The bank is worn and overgrown in places, and cattle have done their share of damage over the decades, but the basic form of the enclosure is still legible in the landscape.

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