Ringfort (Rath), Kilkerrin, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Kilkerrin, Co. Galway

In a quietly rolling field in Kilkerrin, Co. Galway, a piece of early medieval Ireland survives in a form that requires some patience to read.

What was once a rath, a circular earthwork enclosure of the kind built by farming families across Ireland roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, now exists as little more than a scarp, a shallow slope in the ground, and the faint trace of an external fosse, which is simply a ditch dug around the perimeter to define and defend the enclosed space within. A possible outer bank can still be detected along the northern and eastern arc, hinting that this may once have been a more elaborate structure than a simple single-ringed enclosure.

The rath measures approximately 38 metres in diameter, which would have been a modest but functional homestead. Over the centuries, the site has been quietly absorbed into everyday rural life. A house and its garden now interrupt the southern section of the fosse, and a laneway curves around the western edge from the south-west through to the north-west, following the old boundary as if guided by some older memory of the place. These intrusions have not been hostile so much as gradual, the ordinary pressure of land use reshaping an ancient feature into something almost invisible to an untrained eye.

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Pete F
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