Ringfort (Rath), Kilgellia, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Kilgellia, Co. Mayo

Sitting on a natural terrace cut into the lower north-western slope of a hill in Kilgellia, this small ringfort commands a view that feels disproportionate to its modest size.

A rath, to use the Irish term, is a circular or roughly circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank, typically built during the early medieval period as a farmstead for a single family and their livestock. This one measures about 22 metres across, its bank of earth and stone still largely intact, rising to 1.3 metres on the northern side. To the west, Ballymore Lough sits in the foreground, and the Nephin Beg Range fills the far horizon. The Ox Mountains press in from the east and south-east, their steep slopes giving the site a sheltered, almost tucked-away quality despite its open prospect in the other direction.

What makes this rath quietly worth attention is the evidence of how it was used after its enclosing function ceased to matter. Inside the roughly level interior, relict cultivation ridges are clearly visible running on a north-north-east to south-south-west axis, the kind of lazy-bed or ridge-and-furrow pattern associated with small-scale tillage farming that continued in parts of the west long after the early medieval period. A narrow gully, only about 40 centimetres wide, cuts through the bank at the south-east and continues outward beyond the enclosure for a short distance, almost certainly dug to drain water away from those cultivation ridges. The original entrance, a 2-metre gap in the bank at the north-east, is now partly choked with stones and overgrowth. The bank itself varies noticeably in width, from 2 metres at the south-east to just over 3 metres at the north, suggesting either uneven survival or an original asymmetry in construction. Heather, gorse, hawthorn, and blackthorn grow around the bank's outer edge, while the interior holds grass, heather, and ferns.

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Pete F
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