Ringfort (Rath), Corlea, Co. Longford

Co. Longford |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Corlea, Co. Longford

In a low-lying pasture near Corlea in County Longford, there is a subtle rise in the ground that most people would walk past without a second thought.

It is, in fact, a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, one of the most common monument types in the Irish landscape and yet one that is easily overlooked precisely because its earthworks have been so quietly absorbed into the countryside. This one sits as a slightly elevated, roughly oval platform, measuring around 40 metres from northwest to southeast and 35 metres from northeast to southwest, its edges marked not by dramatic ramparts but by a low bank of earth and stone and, in places, a gentle scarp, a sloping break in the ground surface that hints at an older, more deliberate shaping of the land.

Ringforts were typically the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, where a family and their livestock lived within a defended boundary. The enclosing bank here is modest, no more than 0.3 metres high at its highest measured point along the south side, and traces of an external fosse, a shallow defensive ditch, survive just outside it, running to a width of about 1.2 metres and a depth of between 0.2 and 0.4 metres. A 1976 report identified the original entrance as having been on the southeast side. What makes this example particularly interesting is a secondary feature to the south: a low scarp curves outward in an arc before turning east to meet a field boundary running roughly north to south. The irregular area this encloses, approximately 17.5 metres by 17 metres, may be an annexe, a separate but attached enclosure that in other ringfort contexts sometimes served as a livestock pen or working area associated with the main enclosure.

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Pete F
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