Ringfort (Rath), Deelish (Shanid By.), Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ringforts
A gap six metres wide has been cut through one side of this earthwork, not by archaeologists or antiquarians, but almost certainly by farmers quarrying material for other uses, a fate that befell countless such monuments across the Irish countryside.
The breach, on the north-north-east arc of the bank, creates what now functions as a rough causeway across the surrounding fosse, and it is through this unofficial entrance that the site is most readily entered today. Two electricity poles standing near the south-south-west edge complete the picture of a monument absorbed, quietly and without ceremony, into the working agricultural landscape of County Limerick.
The earthwork belongs to the category of monument known as a rath or ringfort, the most common archaeological site type in Ireland, typically dating to the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. A rath is essentially a circular or near-circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used as a farmstead and place of residence for a single family or small community. This example in the townland of Deelish, in the old barony of Shanid, sits in low-lying pasture on a gentle west-facing slope. The enclosing bank measures about thirty metres in diameter, and survives to an internal height of 1.3 metres and an external height of 1.9 metres, the difference reflecting the depth of the external fosse, or ditch, which is roughly 1.2 metres wide and 0.8 metres deep. A dry-stone field wall, standing to around 0.9 metres, has been constructed along the outer edge of the fosse, probably at some point during the post-medieval reorganisation of farmland. The site was recorded by Denis Power and uploaded to the national record in August 2011, with aerial photographs taken in March 2006 providing additional documentation.
The interior slopes very gently westward and is heavily overgrown with briars and bracken, which makes walking it in summer something of an effort. The bank itself is similarly masked by vegetation, and the quarried section at the north-north-east has softened over time into something more like a broad grassy ramp than an obvious wound in the monument. Aerial views taken in early March, before the growing season obscures the earthwork's form, give the clearest sense of its overall shape and extent. Visitors approaching on foot should expect to pick their way carefully; the monument sits in working pasture and there is no formal public access.