Ringfort (Rath), Knightswood, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Knightswood, Co. Westmeath

In a field in Knightswood, County Westmeath, a circle roughly sixty metres across sits quietly in the grassland, its presence most legible not to the eye on the ground but to anyone looking down from above.

Satellite imagery taken between 2011 and 2013 shows the outline of the monument traced by a ring of trees, a natural frame that has, over time, done the work of a signpost.

The site is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a class of enclosure built predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and used as a farmstead or place of residence. They are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, yet each one carries its own particular silence. Here, the form is straightforward: a roughly circular area enclosed by a bank, as recorded on the Ordnance Survey Ireland twenty-five-inch map series, one of the most detailed historical cartographic records of the Irish landscape. Beyond that cartographic trace and the tree-ringed outline visible on aerial imagery, the documentary record is sparse. No excavation report, no account of finds, no detailed field notes appear to survive for this particular site.

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Pete F
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