Ringfort (Rath), Kilglass, Co. Limerick

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Kilglass, Co. Limerick

In a stretch of reclaimed pasture in County Limerick, a low earthwork quietly holds its shape against the surrounding farmland.

The rath at Kilglass is the kind of site that rewards careful looking rather than a dramatic first impression; the enclosing bank has been worn down to little more than a scarp along much of its circuit, and the outline is now largely obscured by trees that have taken root along the old earthwork. From the air, though, the oval form is still clearly legible.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when defined by an earthen bank rather than stone, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and its associated buildings. This particular example sits roughly 50 metres east of a stream and about 100 metres south of the townland boundary with Coolnamohoge. It was recorded on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1840 as an oval-shaped enclosure, and by the time of the 25-inch survey of 1897 its dimensions were noted as approximately 31 metres northwest to southeast and 25 metres northeast to southwest. The bank survived intact from the southwest around to the southeast, though elsewhere it had already been reduced to the low scarp that persists today. The 1897 map also shows a disused lime-kiln, the kind of small stone-built structure once used to burn limestone into agricultural lime, sitting about 50 metres to the southwest, hinting at the long history of farming activity in the immediate area.

The monument sits in working agricultural land, and access is not formalised in any way. Satellite imagery, including Digital Globe orthoimages taken between 2011 and 2013 and views available through Google Earth, gives the clearest sense of the enclosure's shape, since ground-level visibility is limited by the tree growth along the bank. Anyone searching for the site on foot should be aware that the earthwork does not announce itself; what survives is subtle, and the best evidence of the rath's extent may well be the irregular line of mature trees rather than any obvious bank or ditch.

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