Ringfort (Rath), Lomaunaghbaun, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Lomaunaghbaun, Co. Galway

A few fields to the north of this well-preserved ringfort in Lomaunaghbaun, a landowner once turned a spade through the earth and brought up small human bones.

They were never formally located or investigated, and that detail sits unresolved in the record, a quiet unease attached to an otherwise ordinary patch of Galway grassland.

The rath itself, a type of enclosed circular or near-circular settlement built predominantly during the early medieval period, survives in good condition. It measures roughly 35 metres east to west and 33 metres north to south, defined by two earthen banks with a fosse, or ditch, running between them. The inner bank retains its stone facing on the interior side, a detail that suggests some care in the original construction. An entrance gap, just over two metres wide, opens at the east-south-east. Around the outer bank, particularly from the west-south-west running through west and around to the north, a band of field-clearance rubble has been piled up over time, the accumulated labour of later farmers moving stones off the surrounding land. A field wall cuts across the southern portion of the outer bank, another layer of post-medieval activity laid over the earlier structure. Inside the enclosure, a scattering of limestone boulders sits without any obvious pattern, their presence unexplained.

The combination of features here is fairly typical of a multivallate rath, one defended by more than a single bank and ditch, yet the site retains enough of its original form to read clearly in the landscape. The unexcavated interior, the unresolved bone find to the north, and the centuries of accumulated field debris all fold into each other, making Lomaunaghbaun the kind of place that rewards slow attention rather than a quick glance from a gateway.

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Pete F
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