Ringfort (Rath), Killaha, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Killaha, Co. Kerry

On a low knoll in the rough pasture of Killaha, County Kerry, there is a slight levelling of the ground that most walkers would pass without a second glance.

What remains here is almost nothing, and yet that near-nothing carries the outline of something once quite deliberate: an oval platform, roughly thirty metres north to south and twenty metres east to west, that was in all likelihood a rath, the circular or oval earthwork enclosure that served as a defended farmstead throughout early medieval Ireland. Thousands of these ringforts were built across the country between roughly the sixth and twelfth centuries, and many have since been ploughed flat, built over, or simply eroded into the landscape. This one falls into that category.

The site was recorded in the 1990s, noted at the time as lying close to the house of Mrs Margaret O'Donoghue. By the time it was formally assessed, the earthwork had already been levelled, leaving only the natural topography of the knoll as a faint structural memory. The summit remains broadly level and retains the characteristic oval shape associated with a rath, but the banks and ditches that would have defined and defended the original enclosure are gone. Dense overgrowth now covers the area, and a deciduous wood to one side restricts the long views that would once have made this elevated position strategically useful, offering its inhabitants sightlines across the surrounding land.

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Pete F
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