Ringfort (Rath), Garrykennedy, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Garrykennedy, Co. Tipperary

On an east-facing slope above Garrykennedy in County Tipperary, a circular earthwork sits quietly in upland ground, its origins stretching back to early medieval Ireland.

It is a rath, the commonest type of ringfort, a form of enclosed farmstead that tens of thousands of Irish families once called home. Most visitors to the Tipperary lakeshore below would never know it was there.

The enclosure measures roughly 35 metres across from north to south, defined by an earth and stone bank that has worn down over the centuries into a low scarp, now standing only about 0.8 metres high in places. Outside that bank runs a fosse, a defensive ditch, some 3.5 metres wide, broken at the east side by an entrance gap just under 2.6 metres across. That east-facing entrance is typical of the form; orientating the opening toward the sunrise was a common pattern in ringfort construction across Ireland. A field fence cuts through the fosse at the western and northern sides, a reminder that the land has been worked around and across the monument for generations without much ceremony. In 2002, archaeological monitoring carried out by Tara O'Neill on a residential development to the south and south-east found no features or deposits of archaeological significance in that immediate area, leaving the ringfort itself as the main point of interest on this stretch of rising ground.

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