Ringfort (Rath), Gortdromakiery, Co. Kerry

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Gortdromakiery, Co. Kerry

On the highest point of a ridge in Gortdromakiery, looking west over the valley of the Owgarriff River, there is a ringfort that is, by most practical measures, unreachable.

Dense overgrowth has closed in around it entirely, leaving what was once a commanding position in the Kerry landscape effectively sealed off from casual inspection. Ringforts, or raths, are circular enclosures defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built predominantly during the early medieval period as farmsteads or enclosed settlements. Thousands survive across Ireland in varying states, but this one occupies an unusually elevated vantage point, the kind of position that would have made it conspicuous for miles around.

The site appears on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1894 to 1895 as a circular enclosure with a diameter of roughly 35 metres, with a triangulation pillar noted on the northern bank, which suggests the earthworks were still sufficiently legible in the late nineteenth century to serve as a surveying reference point. It is likely one of two raths recorded in the 1930s by Captain D. B. O'Connell, who placed them approximately 549 metres south of Owgarriff Bridge. That brief reference, a military officer noting landmarks in the Kerry countryside, is now one of the few named human observations attached to the site's modern record, and it adds a faint texture to what is otherwise a quietly anonymous piece of ground.

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Pete F
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