Ringfort (Rath), Drumaskin, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
A slight rise in the grassland at Drumaskin is enough to set this ringfort apart from the surrounding terrain, which rolls unevenly down to marshy ground on its northern side.
The choice of position was deliberate: early medieval farmers and their families who occupied such enclosures, probably between the sixth and twelfth centuries, preferred elevated ground for visibility and drainage, not dramatic hilltops. What survives here is almost circular, roughly 46 metres across, and still legible in the landscape despite centuries of wear.
A rath, as this type of enclosure is generally called, consisted of a raised earthen bank surrounding a domestic settlement, sometimes accompanied by an outer ditch, known as a fosse, dug to reinforce the boundary. At Drumaskin, the fosse is most clearly preserved along the southern and western arc, sweeping round to the north-west, while the bank itself has been considerably reduced over time and shows evidence of quarrying on its southern and western sides, suggesting the material was removed at some point for use elsewhere. A gap on the south-eastern side, now blocked, may represent the original entrance, which in Irish ringforts was commonly positioned to face the rising sun. Inside the enclosure, the ground is far from flat: there is a circular depression about six and a half metres across, which might reflect the site of a sunken feature such as a souterrain (an underground stone-lined passage used for storage or refuge), and three low rectangular earthen mounds, each around nine metres long and half a metre high, whose precise function is not easily determined from surface evidence alone. These interior features are the detail that lifts the site beyond a simple grass-covered ring, hinting at a layered history of use that extended well beyond the enclosure bank itself.