Ringfort (Rath), Mirehill, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Mirehill, Co. Galway

In a gently undulating field at Mirehill in County Galway, a roughly circular earthwork sits partially dismantled, its outline still legible in the landscape but only just.

What survives is a rath, a type of ringfort typically built during the early medieval period as an enclosed farmstead for a single family or small community, defined by one or more earthen banks and a ditch, known as a fosse, dug between them. This particular example is subcircular in plan, measuring around 36 metres on its north-east to south-west axis and 31.5 metres on its north-west to south-east axis, placing it within the modest range common to the thousands of such sites scattered across Ireland.

The rath has not fared well over the centuries. Quarrying has eaten into the inner bank and fosse on its south-western and northern sides, removing material that would once have formed the core of its defensive profile. Field walls, built at some point as the surrounding land was divided and managed for agriculture, now run directly over the outer bank, obscuring it from south through west to north-west, with a second wall doing the same on the eastern side. The cumulative effect is a monument that has been quietly cannibalised by the practical demands of the working landscape around it, each intervention leaving its own layer of modification over the original earthwork.

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Pete F
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