Ringfort (Rath), Isertkelly, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Isertkelly, Co. Galway

A low swell in a pasture field on a north-west-facing slope in County Galway is all that remains visible of what was once a circular enclosure, its earthen bank now barely rising above the surrounding ground.

The bank survives to a width of about three metres but lifts only some seventy centimetres on the interior side and a little less on the exterior, meaning a walker could step over it without difficulty. That modest profile is itself a kind of record, a measure of how much has been lost rather than how much endures.

The site belongs to the class of monument known as a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and its associated structures within one or more earthen banks. This example, roughly twenty-five metres in diameter, has suffered considerably from the pressures that have worn away so many similar sites. A field wall bisects it at both the north-west and south-east, and to the east the enclosing bank has vanished entirely, removed during land-improvement works at some point in the past. Associated with the site is a possible souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber that was commonly built within ringforts, most likely for storage or as a place of refuge. The souterrain here has its own separate record but its precise condition is not documented in detail alongside the rath itself.

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Pete F
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