Ringfort (Rath), Lisgormin, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
What makes this rath in Lisgormin quietly compelling is the way the landscape around it seems to have quietly conspired to preserve it.
The field fences that now box it in on all sides are not merely modern agricultural boundaries; the curving fence running from south to north-east, stone-faced on its outer side and sitting some four to four and a half metres beyond the rath scarp, likely traces the line of an original fosse and external bank. A fosse is simply a defensive ditch, and the flat terrace-like gap between that fence and the rath itself suggests the old earthwork was never entirely erased, just quietly absorbed into the working rhythms of successive generations of farmers.
The rath itself is a raised circular area, roughly 26 or 27 metres across, defined by a scarp that still stands between 1.6 and 1.7 metres high on its eastern and western sides. A low internal lip surviving for a short stretch along the east suggests the enclosing bank was originally around 3.5 metres wide. At the south-east, the scarp drops to just half a metre, and a natural rise beyond it reads like a causeway, possibly marking the original entrance. Inside, the ground is level and grassy, and faint cultivation ridges running roughly north-north-east to south-south-west indicate the interior was farmed at some point after the rath's defensive function had passed. More intriguing is a shallow depression in the south-west quadrant, roughly ten and a half metres long and just twenty centimetres deep, which may indicate a souterrain beneath, one of those underground stone-lined passages associated with early medieval settlement, used variously for storage, refuge, or ventilation.
Access follows a farm road that skirts the northern and north-eastern edge of the site, and an abandoned vernacular farmstead sits immediately to the east, its presence adding a second layer of desertion to the place. The rath scarp carries a light growth of blackthorn, and the outer fence line is densely fringed with blackthorn, ash, and brambles, giving the whole enclosure a ringed, layered quality that takes a moment to read once you are standing in it.