Ringfort (Rath), Lissard, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ringforts
In a damp field in County Limerick, just fifty metres south of the townland boundary with Ballylooby, a low oval rise in the ground marks the presence of an early medieval ringfort.
It is not dramatic from the roadside, and that is part of what makes it interesting. What looks at first like a gentle swelling in wet pasture is, on closer inspection, a carefully bounded enclosure, its edges defined by a bank and a fosse, the term for the external ditch that typically accompanied such earthworks. Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when earthen, were the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, built roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and several thousand survive across the country in varying states of preservation. This one in Lissard sits quietly among them.
The site was recorded on the 1897 edition of the Ordnance Survey Ireland 25-inch map, where it is annotated simply as 'Lissard' and depicted as a raised, roughly circular area with a diameter of approximately twenty metres, defined by a scarp. More recent documentation has refined that picture. An oblique aerial photograph taken on 5 October 2002, held in the archive as ASIAP (317) 33, shows the monument clearly as an oval enclosure measuring approximately twenty-two metres on its northeast to southwest axis and nineteen metres northwest to southeast, the bank and fosse legible from the air in a way that ground-level inspection rarely allows. Google Earth orthoimages corroborate the same form. The record was compiled by Martin Fitzpatrick and uploaded in July 2021.
Accessing the site requires some preparation. The surrounding ground is described as wet pasture, so waterproof footwear is advisable, and the monument sits on private farmland, meaning that permission from the landowner should be sought before visiting. The aerial photograph gives the clearest sense of the monument's shape and extent, and consulting it alongside a current map before going out will help orient a visit considerably. The slight elevation of the interior platform relative to the surrounding field is the most immediately readable feature on the ground, with the line of the bank and fosse becoming more apparent as you walk the perimeter. Early morning or low winter light can help bring out the earthwork's profile when shadows fall across the scarp.