Ringfort (Rath), Corrower, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Corrower, Co. Mayo

In the undulating pastureland of Corrower in County Mayo, a broad oval platform rises quietly from the ground, its edges defined not by a dramatic wall or ditch but by a scarp, a sloping earthen edge, that varies considerably depending on which side you approach.

On the northern arc, the drop is barely 0.4 metres, almost easy to miss. On the southern half, where the ground naturally falls away, the same scarp reaches 1.8 metres and extends across a slope nearly 3.5 metres wide. That asymmetry, shaped partly by topography and partly by whoever built it, gives this rath a subtly lopsided presence in the field.

A rath is an early medieval ringfort, typically a circular or oval enclosure defined by an earthen bank and used as a farmstead or a place of domestic activity. This one measures roughly 21.4 metres east to west and between 20 and 15 metres north to south. Unusually, later field walls have been built directly around it, some lying within a metre of the scarp's base at the east and northwest, others sitting three to four metres out at the southwest, creating an unintended polygonal ring that frames the older structure without quite touching it. There is also a local tradition of a souterrain associated with the site, a souterrain being an underground stone-lined passage often connected to ringforts and thought to have served for storage or refuge. A massive boulder and a scatter of smaller stones sit in the gap between the scarp and the outer field wall at the northeast, their origins unrecorded.

The interior is now dense with blackthorn and brambles, and the entire perimeter is ringed with hawthorn and blackthorn, giving the rath a closed, overgrown quality that is common among sites of this kind left undisturbed in pasture. The scrub makes it difficult to examine the interior directly, but the form of the enclosure reads clearly from the outside, particularly on the southern side where the scarp is at its most pronounced.

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Pete F
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