Ringfort (Rath), Coolbeg, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Coolbeg, Co. Galway

On a low ridge in open pastureland near Coolbeg in County Galway, the outline of an early medieval homestead survives just barely above the surrounding fields.

It is not much to look at now, but the oval earthwork here, measuring roughly 33 metres north to south and 26.5 metres east to west, is the remnant of a rath, the most common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland. Raths were typically circular or oval enclosures bounded by an earthen bank and outer ditch, built to protect a farmstead and its inhabitants, livestock included, from opportunistic raiding rather than organised warfare. This one has endured in only partial form.

What remains of the enclosing element is uneven. A bank survives along two arcs, running from the north-west around to the north-east and again from the south-south-east to the south-south-west, but along the rest of the circuit the ground simply drops away in a natural-looking scarp, which now performs the work the bank once did. A gap about four and a half metres wide on the southern side may be the original entrance, the point through which people and animals would have passed daily. Immediately outside the enclosure to the south-east, a small quarry has been cut into the ground at some point, likely exploiting the same ridge that made this a sensible place to build in the first instance.

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Pete F
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