Ringfort (Rath), Lehinch Demesne, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
Most ringforts in Ireland present a single enclosing bank, sometimes two.
The rath at Lehinch Demesne in County Mayo has three, a feature that places it in a relatively rare category and raises immediate questions about whoever once lived, or sheltered, within it. A rath, to use the Irish term for this type of earthwork, is a roughly circular enclosure built from earthen banks and ditches, typically dating to the early medieval period. The vast majority have one bank and one fosse, the ditch cut to provide material for the bank. Triple-banked examples, known as trivallate raths, are far less common and are generally associated with high-status occupation, though the precise social meaning of a third ring of earthworks is still a matter of archaeological debate.
The enclosure sits on a gentle rise in low-lying ground beside the Robe River, which runs about 120 metres to the east. The oval interior measures roughly 21.6 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, and the three concentric banks that surround it are in notably good condition. The middle bank is actually the most substantial of the three, with a broad, flattened top between 2.5 and 3 metres wide, while the outermost ring is considerably slighter. The innermost fosse is broad and deep; the outer one is partly infilled with accumulated material. An original entrance can still be read at the east-northeast, where a wide gap in the inner bank aligns with a causeway crossing the innermost ditch, then narrows through a corresponding gap in the middle bank. The outermost bank is more ambiguous at this point, slightly out of alignment with the gaps in the inner two rings, and considerably more worn. The whole structure is hemmed in by later field boundaries, with a farm track skirting the southern and eastern edges, and a small area of quarrying or disturbance has clipped the outer bank at the northwest.
The interior is now rough pasture, covered in long grass and thistles, while hawthorn and ash have grown thickly along the enclosing banks. These trees, though not ancient in the archaeological sense, give the site a closed, interior quality that the original builders would not have intended; a rath in use would have been a point of visibility and control over the surrounding land, not a place absorbed quietly into the hedgerow.

