Ringfort (Rath), Knightswood, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Knightswood, Co. Westmeath

On a hillside in County Westmeath, a ringfort survives that is considerably larger than most of its kind, and it carries a name that quietly sets it apart.

Recorded on the 1837 Ordnance Survey Fair Plan map as 'Rathmharaga', this earthwork measures roughly 56 metres north to south and 59 metres east to west, placing it well above the typical scale for a rath. A rath is an early medieval enclosed farmstead, usually circular, defined by one or more earthen banks and an external fosse, the term for a defensive ditch dug around the perimeter. Here, both features are still legible in the landscape, though unevenly so.

The site sits on the south-eastern face of a high hill in grassland, with Ballynafid Lake visible to the south-west about 450 metres away, and a second ringfort lying 250 metres to the south-east. The earthen bank survives best along the western to northern arc and again from the south-east around to the south-south-east, while elsewhere it has been largely levelled. The external fosse remains most visible from the west-south-west around through north to north-east. The eastern side has suffered more deliberate intervention; a portion of the perimeter has been quarried away, and what may originally have been an entrance gap at the east-south-east has been widened over time to allow farm machinery through. A field fence now cuts across the monument from north-east to south-west at the western side, and part of the bank along the northern to south-eastern stretch has been reshaped to serve as a modern field boundary. The interior itself is not flat, but slopes noticeably from north-west down to south-east, a detail that complicates any straightforward reading of how the enclosed space was once used or arranged.

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