Ringfort (Rath), Kilteenbane, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Ringforts
In a quiet valley on the Dingle Peninsula, squeezed between Corrin Hill to the north-west and Knockbrack to the south-east, sits a ringfort that has been slowly losing its shape for well over a thousand years.
What remains is unspectacular at first glance, a low circular earthwork roughly 25.8 metres across internally, but the unevenness of the ground tells a more detailed story. The interior is raised nearly a metre above the external surface in the north-east quadrant, then dips roughly 60 to 70 centimetres below it on the south-west side, a consequence of centuries of erosion and slippage working unevenly across the enclosure.
A rath, the Irish term for this class of earthen ringfort, was typically a farmstead of the early medieval period, its bank and internal platform providing a defensible, well-drained space for a household and its outbuildings. This particular example is univallate, meaning it has a single enclosing bank rather than the two or three concentric rings found at more elaborate or higher-status sites. The bank itself has been reduced to a low scarp in places, though stretches of drystone revetment walling, dry-laid stone used to face and stabilise an earthen structure, survive intermittently along both the inner and outer faces. Near the centre of the enclosure, slightly to the west, are the very ruined remains of a circular stone hut approximately 4.6 metres in diameter, the structure that would once have sheltered whoever farmed this valley floor. The site lies about 50 metres from the east bank of the local river, on gently sloping ground that drops northward toward the valley entrance. Its condition was recorded in detail by J. Cuppage as part of the Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey published in 1986.