Ringfort (Rath), Gullane Middle, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Ringforts
On a hillside in Gullane Middle, in the north of County Kerry, an almost perfectly circular earthwork sits quietly within the surrounding field system, its bank still standing nearly two metres high after more than a thousand years.
This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common monument type in the Irish landscape. Thousands were built, mainly during the early medieval period, and they served as enclosed farmsteads for families of middling social rank. What makes individual examples worth pausing over is not rarity but detail, and this one preserves its detail well.
The enclosure measures roughly 39 metres north to south and 37 metres east to west, making it a reasonably substantial example. It is univallate, meaning it has a single enclosing bank rather than the two or three concentric rings that mark higher-status sites. That bank is 5 metres wide at its base, rises 1.8 metres on the outer face and 1.6 metres on the inner, and encloses a roughly circular interior that would once have contained timber buildings, animal pens, and the daily workings of an early medieval household. A gap of about 3 metres on the south-east side appears to be the original entrance, oriented, as was common, away from the prevailing wind and towards lower, more workable ground. A stream runs a short distance to the south, which would have been a practical necessity for any settled community. Three fieldbanks meet the site at the north-north-east, south-east, and west-north-west, suggesting the rath sat within a worked agricultural landscape and was integrated into it rather than isolated from it. These details come from the North Kerry Archaeological Survey, compiled by C. Toal and published in 1995.