Ringfort (Rath), Grenanstown, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Grenanstown, Co. Tipperary

A modern field fence cuts directly through this early medieval enclosure in Grenanstown, Co. Tipperary, and in doing so neatly illustrates a problem common to hundreds of similar sites across Ireland.

To the northwest of that boundary, the earthwork has vanished entirely. To the southeast, enough survives to give a sense of what was once here.

A rath is a type of ringfort, typically a circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used as a farmstead during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. This example sits in a localised hollow on ground that slopes away to the northeast, set within undulating terrain. The Ordnance Survey six-inch map, produced in the nineteenth century, recorded it as a circular platform, which suggests the earthwork was more complete at that point than it is today. What remains to the southeast is a raised area measuring approximately 34 metres across, still just half a metre above the surrounding ground. It is defined by a fosse, the ditch that would originally have helped demarcate and defend the enclosed space, running to about 4.3 metres wide and just under 0.4 metres deep, with an outer bank beyond it stretching some 5.1 metres wide. These are modest dimensions, but they are enough to trace the shape of a boundary that once mattered to someone living and farming here well over a thousand years ago.

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