Ringfort (Rath), Crosspatrick, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
A low, tree-ringed rise in the gently rolling farmland of County Mayo conceals what survives of an early medieval ringfort, the kind of enclosure that once served as a defended homestead for a farming family of some local standing.
Thousands of these earthworks were built across Ireland, and thousands more have been levelled or absorbed into the working landscape. This one endures, just about, beneath a thicket of sycamore, ash, and blackthorn dense enough to make the interior almost impossible to examine.
The rath, a term used for ringforts defined by an earthen bank rather than stone, measures roughly 23.5 metres across on its north-south axis. The bank itself, between 3.5 and 4 metres wide, still stands to an external height of around 1.3 metres at its best-preserved stretches, running from the north-west round to the north-east, and again at the south-east to south-west. It has not escaped entirely unscathed: a field wall cuts across the eastern side, and sections to the south-west and north-west have been dug away at some point in more recent times. Pressed against the western side of the rath is a further earthwork, a roughly square structure with maximum dimensions of about 6 metres, defined by a low raised rim. Its character suggests it is a later addition rather than part of the original construction, though quite what purpose it served is not recorded. Inside the main enclosure, where the vegetation permits any reading at all, there appears to be a slightly raised platform area of around 10 metres across, set off-centre towards the north-west, with the ground falling away gently from it to the north and west. Whether that represents a house platform or simply a natural undulation beneath accumulated growth is difficult to say. A working farmstead sits immediately to the south-south-west, which gives some sense of how this landscape has been continuously occupied across a very long stretch of time.
