Ringfort (Rath), Moneygaff, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Moneygaff, Co. Cork

Tucked into a north-east-facing slope at Moneygaff in County Cork, this early medieval ringfort carries a detail that sets it apart from the thousands of similar enclosures scattered across the Irish countryside: a square platform abutting its outer defences.

Most ringforts, or raths, are straightforward enough in plan, a roughly circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks, but a squared annexe measuring ten metres on each side and rising a metre above the surrounding pasture is an unusual addition, and its purpose remains unclear.

The enclosure itself is modest in scale, around 33 metres north to south and 35 metres east to west, ringed by an earthen bank standing just over a metre high. Beyond that bank, on the north-west to south-west arc, lies an external fosse, essentially a defensive ditch, cut to a depth of 1.3 metres, with a low counterscarp bank on its outer edge. It is against the outer face of this counterscarp bank, to the north-east, that the square platform sits. Inside the enclosure, a semicircle of stones roughly four metres in diameter near the centre is thought to be the remains of a hut site, the kind of modest circular structure that would have housed the rath's inhabitants during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries. More intriguing still is the presence of a souterrain in the interior. Souterrains are dry-stone or rock-cut underground passages found on many Irish ringfort sites; they are generally interpreted as places of refuge, cool storage for food and dairy produce, or both. Their construction required considerable effort and organisation, suggesting the household that built this one had both the resources and the reasons to want one.

The site sits in open pasture, which means its earthworks have survived reasonably well above ground and the main features, the bank, the ditch, the counterscarp, and the raised platform, remain legible to anyone who knows what to look for. The semicircle of stones near the centre is the most visually striking element at ground level, though the souterrain entrance, if visible at all, would require closer attention to locate.

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