Ringfort (Rath), Drumreagh, Co. Wicklow

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Drumreagh, Co. Wicklow

On a south-facing slope in Drumreagh, County Wicklow, a circular earthwork sits quietly in the landscape, its domed profile low enough that a casual walker might mistake it for a natural rise in the ground.

It is, in fact, a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common type of early medieval settlement monument found across Ireland. Typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, these enclosures served as farmsteads for individual families, the earthen banks and ditches marking out a domestic space rather than a military fortification.

This particular example is modest but intact in its essentials. The circular platform measures twenty-two metres in diameter and rises to a maximum height of around two and three-quarter metres, with a slight dome to its surface. Around the perimeter, a low bank survives, between one and one and three-quarter metres wide and roughly twenty centimetres high. Beyond it, an external fosse, a shallow ditch, runs from the south-east around through the south to the west, and an outer bank mirrors that same arc. The layering of bank, ditch, and outer bank suggests a reasonably well-defined enclosure, even if the individual elements are now considerably reduced. No trace of an entrance has been identified, and no internal features are visible above ground, leaving the daily life that once went on inside it largely a matter of inference.

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Pete F
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