Ringfort (Rath), Corrower, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
A ringfort sitting quietly in Mayo pasture, ringed by hazel, blackthorn, bramble, and gorse, might seem unremarkable enough on its own.
What makes the site at Corrower stranger is the density of ancient activity packed into the immediate landscape around it. Within a hundred metres to the north-east lies a holy well fed by a spring pool, and beside it a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site typically identified by a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stone left over from repeated episodes of water-heating. The fort is flanked by water on almost every side: Ballymore Lough 150 metres to the south-west, Lough Caorhann roughly 200 metres to the north-east, and Cartron Lough 500 metres further still. This clustering of monument types around a single elevated position suggests a landscape that was meaningful and well-used across a very long stretch of time.
The rath itself, known as Lisatrawbuie on the 1922 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, takes the form of a raised circular platform, roughly 33 metres north to south and 34.5 metres east to west. A rath is a ringfort built from earthworks rather than stone, typically dating from the early medieval period, though the type was used across several centuries. Here, the interior platform is defined by an earthen bank which has largely eroded to a scarp between 1.6 and 1.8 metres high, with stones visible through the outer face in places. A short arc of the original inner bank, perhaps five metres long, survives at the south, though it is largely buried in overgrowth. Beyond the bank runs a fosse, a wide shallow ditch up to five metres across, itself bounded on the outside by a further bank of earth and stone. At the south and south-west the fosse flattens into a narrow terrace and the outer bank merges into a later field wall, which also blocks what may have been the original entrance at the north-east. A small circular hollow in the north-west quadrant of the interior, about 1.6 metres across and 0.3 metres deep with a slightly raised stony rim, sits unexplained; its purpose is not recorded.