Ringfort (Rath), Gortaderry, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Gortaderry, Co. Tipperary

On an upland slope in County Tipperary, overlooking the Cahernahallia River, there is a circular earthwork that most walkers would pass without a second glance.

What remains is subtle: a slightly raised platform of ground, roughly 27 metres north to south and 31 metres east to west, ringed by a bank that has been worn down over centuries to little more than a low scarp in most places. Only at the northern arc does the bank still carry something close to its original profile, rising about 1.5 metres on its outer face. This is a rath, the commonest type of ringfort found across Ireland, a form of enclosed farmstead built predominantly during the early medieval period, from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Thousands were once scattered across the Irish landscape; most have been reduced, as this one has, to faint signatures in the topography.

The enclosing bank here is earthen, with a base width of about four metres and a top width of 1.8 metres where it survives in reasonable condition. Outside it runs a fosse, a defensive ditch, best preserved along the south-western to western arc, where it remains around 2.5 metres wide and a metre deep. The interior height of the bank, at just 0.2 metres, suggests the inner face has been almost entirely flattened, whether by ploughing, field clearance, or simple time. A field boundary cuts across the enclosing scarp on a north-east to south-west axis, running from south to east, which points to centuries of agricultural activity reshaping the site after its original use ended. A second ringfort lies approximately 200 metres to the south, and the pairing of two such enclosures in relatively close proximity, though not unusual in Ireland, raises questions about the relationship between the two farmsteads and the community that once worked this upland ground above the river.

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Pete F
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