Ringfort (Rath), Kilmaloge, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Kilmaloge, Co. Tipperary

At Kilmaloge in County Tipperary, a ringfort survives in a condition that is, in its own way, quietly instructive.

Half of it is simply gone, lost to quarrying at some point in the past, with a field boundary now running north to south along what was once the eastern interior. The plough comes right up to the edge of the fosse, the U-shaped defensive ditch that once encircled the whole structure, and scrub, brambles, and nettles have colonised what remains of the bank and interior. This is not a site that has been tidied up for visitors.

A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1200 AD, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and accompanying ditches. Thousands survive across Ireland in varying states of completeness. The Kilmaloge example sits on a very gentle south-facing slope in gently undulating tillage land, and the 1904 to 1905 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map shows it as roughly circular, with a diameter of approximately 41 metres. At that point it was evidently still largely intact. What survives today is defined by a scarp standing around 1.7 metres high over a base of 1.8 metres, and the remnant fosse measures roughly 1.3 metres wide and 0.77 metres deep. These are modest but legible dimensions, enough to read the shape of the original enclosure even from what is now only the western arc of the monument.

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Pete F
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