Ringfort (Rath), Duncummin, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Duncummin, Co. Tipperary

Sitting quietly in level pasture in County Tipperary, this small earthwork is easy to walk past without a second thought, yet it preserves, in subdued form, the outline of an early medieval farmstead that once sheltered a family and their livestock behind a raised bank and ditch.

What survives is modest but legible: a circular raised area fourteen metres across, enclosed by a flat-topped earthen bank that still stands nearly two metres high on its outer face, with a silted-up fosse, or defensive ditch, running around the outside at a width of between five and eight metres.

Raths, as this type of ringfort is commonly known, were the dominant settlement form in Ireland roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. They were not military fortifications in any grand sense, but enclosed farmsteads, the bank and fosse serving to define ownership, deter opportunistic cattle raids, and keep animals in or out. This particular example retains a poorly defined break in the bank on the south-east side, about five metres wide, which is interpreted as the position of the original entrance. The interior slopes gently toward the south-south-east and remains clear of overgrowth, which makes the earthwork relatively easy to read as a physical form even though the structures that once stood inside it have long since vanished. A second ringfort is visible roughly 120 metres to the west-north-west, a reminder that these enclosures rarely occur in true isolation; clusters of two or more across a townland are common and may reflect related households or successive generations farming the same land.

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Pete F
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