Ringfort (Rath), Kilfaughny, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
On a low rise in the pastureland of Kilfaughny, County Westmeath, sits a ringfort that has been quietly losing the argument with time on one side while holding its ground on the other.
A rath, as this type of earthwork is also known, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically circular and defined by an earthen bank and an outer ditch called a fosse. This particular example is small, measuring roughly 29 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, and its survival is uneven in a way that tells its own story. The eastern and southern portions of the bank remain steep and well preserved, while the western and north-western arcs have been worn almost flat, reduced to little more than a slight change in the ground level.
When surveyors documented the site in 1971, the fosse, the external ditch that would once have reinforced the enclosure's defensive or social boundary, was already faint. Its clearest traces ran from the south-west, with very little visible elsewhere around the circuit. No original entrance could be identified, which is not unusual for earthworks that have been exposed to centuries of agricultural activity. The interior slopes gently toward the south-south-east, and a deep field drain has been cut into the ground just outside the bank to the east, a practical modern intervention that sits in awkward proximity to something considerably older. A Preservation Order was placed on the monument in November 1983, offering it a degree of legal protection, though the differential survival of the bank suggests that the damage to the north-western side had already been done long before any formal notice was taken.