Ringfort (Rath), Drummury, Co. Cavan

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Drummury, Co. Cavan

On a drumlin hill in County Cavan, there is a ringfort that no longer exists above ground.

Sometime in the early 1960s, the earthworks were levelled entirely, and the site has left nothing visible at the surface since. That erasure is, in its own quiet way, the most remarkable thing about it.

A 1969 report by the Office of Public Works documented what had been there: a raised circular area roughly 34 metres in internal diameter, enclosed by two substantial earthen banks with a wide, deep, waterlogged fosse, the defensive ditch, running between them. The original entrance appears to have faced northeast. As a rath, a type of ringfort typically associated with early medieval Ireland and used as a defended farmstead by a family of some local standing, it would have been a prominent feature in the landscape. Sited just below the summit of the drumlin, the low rounded hill left behind by glacial deposition that gives this part of Cavan its distinctive rolling character, it would have commanded reasonable views across the surrounding terrain. Double-banked ringforts of this kind are less common than single-banked examples and are generally associated with higher-status occupants, which makes the loss of this one the more pointed.

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Pete F
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