Ringfort (Rath), Drumsheen, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
In the undulating pasture of Drumsheen in County Mayo, a raised circular platform sits quietly on a rise, its earthen banks still legible after more than a thousand years of agricultural activity.
The site is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead that was the standard unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, roughly from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. What makes this one worth a second look is not just its survival but its complexity: the main enclosure is accompanied by a roughly D-shaped terrace abutting its south-western side, sitting at a slightly lower level, suggesting the site may once have been more elaborate in its layout than a single family compound.
The rath itself is roughly circular, measuring 31.6 metres across on its north-west to south-east axis. On the south-east to west-north-west arc, it is defined by an earthen bank about 2.4 metres wide and 0.7 metres high externally, with a low internal lip. On the opposite arc, from north-west to north-east, a more substantial scarp rises to 2 metres, giving that side of the enclosure a noticeably steeper, more defensive character. The interior is level. Local tradition holds that a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage that would have served for storage or refuge, lies in the eastern half of the enclosure, though the surface gives little away. A spring well sits approximately 100 metres to the north-west, a proximity that would have been a practical necessity for any early settlement. The bank has been truncated to the east by a later field wall, and the scarp to the north has been cut by a road-side fence and further disturbed where a farm track was constructed, so the surrounding farmstead has steadily pressed in over the generations. Long grass covers the interior today, and brambles and hawthorn have colonised the bank, giving the whole thing a pleasantly untended appearance against its working agricultural surroundings.