Ringfort (Rath), Laffina, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Laffina, Co. Tipperary

A low, scrub-covered rise in the middle of a tillage field in County Tipperary is easy to overlook from a distance, but the circle of raised ground at Laffina is the softened outline of an Early Medieval ringfort, or rath, a type of enclosed farmstead that once served as the residence and working centre of a farming family, most likely sometime between the fifth and twelfth centuries.

What survives today is a circular area roughly 33 metres across, ringed by an earth and stone bank that has worn down over centuries to little more than a low scarp. The original outer fosse, the shallow defensive ditch that would have run around the outside of the bank, has been almost entirely filled in, and the entrance gap on the south-eastern side, once perhaps a modest timber gateway, has been widened considerably, probably to allow agricultural machinery or livestock through.

The knoll the ringfort sits on was clearly chosen with care. It occupies a south-east facing slope with open views in every direction, a practical consideration for anyone wanting to monitor approaching visitors or threats. The interior follows the natural gradient of the hill, sloping downward from north-west to south-east, so the ground underfoot is not level but shaped by the landscape it was built into. A second gap in the bank on the north-western side, narrower at about two metres wide, appears to have been cut as a livestock passage, suggesting the enclosure has been pressed into agricultural use for some time. On the southern face of the scarp, an old quarry hole is visible, evidence that the bank itself has been raided at some point as a convenient source of stone. Field boundaries that once enclosed the fort on its southern and western sides, visible on older Ordnance Survey maps, have since been removed, leaving the earthwork sitting openly in the middle of a ploughed field rather than tucked into a corner of the agricultural landscape as so many of its counterparts are.

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Pete F
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