Ringfort (Rath), Dohora, Co. Limerick

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Dohora, Co. Limerick

At some point in the relatively recent past, a townland boundary ran clean through the middle of this ringfort, dividing not just the earthwork but the administrative identity of the land beneath it.

That detail, recorded on the 1840 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, gives this otherwise quietly unremarkable patch of Limerick pasture a peculiar quality: an ancient monument used, in effect, as a property marker, its circular form bisected by a line drawn for entirely modern bureaucratic purposes.

A ringfort, sometimes called a rath, is the most common type of early medieval monument in Ireland, typically consisting of a raised circular bank and ditch enclosing a domestic settlement. This one sits in pasture around 500 metres south-east of the townland boundary with Carrow, in the townland of Dohora. The 1840 map shows it clearly as a circular earthwork cut in two by an internal boundary separating what were apparently two distinct portions of Dohora townland. By the time the revised Ordnance Survey 25-inch map was produced in 1897, that internal boundary had disappeared from the record, and the monument was measured as a roughly circular earthwork approximately 53 metres north to south and 55 metres east to west. The Sites and Monuments Record file classifies it as a ditched enclosure, suggesting its defining feature is the ditch rather than a prominent raised bank.

The earthwork remains visible today, identifiable in aerial imagery as a roughly circular, tree-lined feature in the surrounding pasture. Orthophotos from multiple sources, including OSi surveys taken between 2005 and 2012, Digital Globe imagery from 2011 to 2013, and a Google Earth image from June 2018, all confirm its continued presence. The ring of trees that now outlines it is typical of Irish ringforts that have survived in agricultural land; farmers have long left such features alone, partly from tradition and partly because the earthwork makes cultivation awkward. Visitors looking for it on the ground should expect to read the landscape rather than encounter a dramatic monument; the tree line is the clearest guide.

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Pete F
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