Ringfort (Rath), Lowpark, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
A ringfort that is not quite round is already a curiosity, but the one at Lowpark in County Mayo earns its unusual shape from the river that runs beside it.
Sitting on a rise above the west bank of the Mullaghanoe, a small northward-flowing stream, the enclosure is roughly D-shaped, around 51 metres east to west and 59 metres north to south. The straight eastern side runs parallel to the river, and it seems the watercourse itself dictated that flattened plan, functioning as a natural boundary where an earthen bank would otherwise have curved.
A ringfort, or rath, is an early medieval enclosed settlement, typically circular, defined by one or more earthen banks and external ditches. Here, the enclosing bank is particularly substantial on the western side, reaching an external height of around 2.4 metres, with the outer ditch, known as a fosse, running broadly around the perimeter. The relationship between the fort and the river has shifted over time. The 1838 Ordnance Survey six-inch map shows a looping branch of the Mullaghanoe passing directly alongside the eastern side of the enclosure, and local information suggests the stream once ran through the fosse itself on that side. By the 1920 edition, the river had been canalised and its course adjusted slightly, leaving a dry gap of around five metres between the fosse and the water's edge. Entry to the interior appears to have been managed carefully: a narrow stony causeway, just a metre wide, crosses the fosse at the north-east, while a second break in the bank sits at the south-east. Local tradition holds that a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage associated with early medieval settlements, lies somewhere in the western half of the interior, and that the north-west quadrant was once used as a children's burial ground, a type of informal cemetery known in Irish as a cillín, used for unbaptised infants. Two further earthwork sites lie close by, another rath 175 metres to the north and an enclosure 190 metres to the south-west.
The interior is now dense with ferns and ringed by blackthorn, which makes it difficult to examine at close quarters. The fosse on the eastern side remains noticeably damp at its flat base, a lingering reminder of its former connection to the river running just a few metres away.