Ringfort (Rath), Garranmore, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Ringforts
A roughly oval enclosure sits on a south-west-facing slope in the uplands of Garranmore, its earthen bank still intact enough to walk around and read like a diagram of early medieval life.
This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common monument type surviving in the Irish landscape. Thousands were built between roughly the fifth and tenth centuries, serving as enclosed farmsteads for families of some social standing, and this one in County Tipperary holds its shape with quiet persistence.
The enclosure measures approximately 38 metres north to south and 30 metres east to west internally, making it a reasonably substantial example. The surrounding bank, built from earth and stone, still stands between one and two metres above the outer ground level, with a base width of nearly four metres. Beyond it runs a fosse, the outer defensive ditch, which survives most clearly along the south-west to west arc of the monument. A gap of around four metres on the south-west side is the probable original entrance, a placement that would have faced the more accessible downhill approach. The interior follows the natural slope of the ground, falling from north to south. Along the eastern side of the bank, remnants of stone walling are visible; these appear to be the remains of a later field boundary that once cut across the monument but has since been removed. The Ordnance Survey six-inch maps recorded that boundary when it still existed, making it possible to trace the change between the historical cartographic record and what can be seen on the ground today.
The setting rewards attention in its own right. The site occupies rising ground with open views to the south and west, the kind of position that would have offered both surveillance and a degree of natural defence to whoever enclosed this patch of hillside more than a thousand years ago.