Ringfort (Rath), Grange More, Co. Sligo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Grange More, Co. Sligo

At Grange More in County Sligo, a low earthen ring sits on a ridge at the southern foot of the Ox Mountains, looking much like a slight swelling in the field unless you know what you are looking at.

It is a rath, the commonplace Irish term for a ringfort, which was the typical farmstead of early medieval Ireland, typically housing a single family and their livestock within a raised bank and, often, an outer ditch. Thousands survive across the country, most of them unexcavated and quietly eroding, and this one at Grange More is no exception.

The enclosure is circular, roughly 18.5 metres across, and defined by an earthen bank about 3.5 metres wide. The bank stands only about 0.4 metres above the interior ground level, though it rises a more substantial 1.2 metres on the outer face, giving a clearer sense from the outside of what was once a meaningful boundary. Beyond the bank, the traces of an external fosse, a defensive ditch, survive in places, running to about 2.5 to 3 metres wide, though these remains are described as ephemeral, meaning they have largely been absorbed back into the landscape. The southern side of both bank and fosse has been cut through by a later east-west field boundary, the kind of agricultural imposition that has quietly dismantled earthworks across Ireland over many centuries. A field drain, about 1.5 metres wide, runs along the outer edge of the ditch to the east, adding further pressure to the margins of the site. Inside the enclosure, in the south-western quadrant, there is a slightly raised crescent-shaped feature roughly 2.5 metres across, though whether this represents something original to the ringfort or is simply the result of later disturbance is unclear.

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Pete F
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