Ringfort (Rath), Duneel, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
On a prominent hill in County Westmeath, just below the summit, the ground gives away a secret only if you know where to look.
What survives here is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was typically a circular or oval enclosure defined by an earthen bank and outer ditch, used as a farmstead or defended homestead during the early medieval period. This one sits in pasture, quietly deteriorating, its oval outline measuring roughly 33 metres north to south and just under 29 metres east to west. The views from the site are expansive, eastward and southwest across the Westmeath landscape, which makes the location feel deliberate rather than accidental, chosen by someone who understood the value of elevation.
When the monument was formally described in 1971, the defining features were already in poor condition. The enclosing bank was low and poorly preserved, and the external fosse, a shallow ditch running outside the bank, was most legible when viewed from the west and northwest. A portion of the interior and the southern scarp had been quarried away, which accounts for the partial character of what remains. There is a gap in the eastern bank, roughly eight metres wide at the top and narrowing to around three and a half metres at the base, but whether this represents the original entrance to the enclosure or a later break is uncertain. At the centre of the interior, a small area of bedrock protrudes through the surface, a geological footnote that complicates any attempt to read the ground as it might once have appeared.
