Ringfort (Rath), Donadea, Co. Kildare

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Donadea, Co. Kildare

What looks from ground level like a faintly raised, much-abused field on a west-facing slope in County Kildare turns out, when seen from above, to be something considerably more elaborate. Centuries of ploughing have reduced this ringfort, a rath, to an almost apologetic presence in the tillage landscape, its inner earthen bank still traceable at roughly 1.7 metres in external height and seven metres wide, with a probable entrance gap on the eastern side. A wide outer fosse, the defensive ditch that typically encircled such enclosures, survives to a depth of about 0.8 metres, though its southern portion has been partly buried beneath a modern field bank. Measured internally, the monument runs approximately 49 metres east to west and 42 metres north to south, dimensions that suggest a substantial enclosed settlement of the early medieval period.

The more revealing detail came not from ground survey but from aerial cropmarks visible on Google Earth imagery captured on 28 June 2018. Those marks indicate that this was originally a trivallate ringfort, meaning it was once defined by three concentric banks and ditches rather than the single circuit visible today. Trivallate examples are comparatively rare among Ireland's thousands of ringforts and are generally associated with higher-status occupants. With an overall external diameter of 86 metres, the full monument would have been a commanding feature of the landscape. Years of ploughing have stripped away the outer circuits almost entirely, leaving the innermost earthwork as the only element that registers at any meaningful height on the ground.

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Pete F
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