Ringfort (Rath), Farthingville, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Farthingville, Co. Cork

In a pasture on a west-south-westerly facing slope in north Cork, a low circular earthwork sits quietly in the landscape, easy to overlook and yet remarkably intact in its basic form.

It measures roughly 56 metres east to west and just under 53 metres north to south, making it a fairly substantial example of the type of enclosure commonly called a rath or ringfort. These were the most common form of settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from somewhere between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation.

What gives this particular earthwork its legibility is the survival of several distinct features. An earthen bank, still standing around 0.7 metres above the interior ground level along the north-east to southern arc, defines the enclosure on those sides, while elsewhere the boundary takes the form of a scarp, a natural or cut slope rather than a built-up bank. Outside the enclosure, a fosse, the term for a ditch dug as part of a defensive or boundary arrangement, runs from north-north-east to south-south-west and survives to a depth of around 0.85 metres. Inside the bank along the northern and western sides, there is a shallow depression, which may represent the remnants of an earlier feature or simply the result of soil movement over many centuries. Together, these elements give a clear sense of how the original enclosure was structured, even if the surface has been worn and softened by generations of grazing.

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Pete F
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