Ringfort (Rath), Moneygurney, Co. Cork

Co. Cork |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Moneygurney, Co. Cork

At Moneygurney in County Cork, there is a place that no longer quite exists.

A ringfort once stood here, a rath, which is a type of circular earthen enclosure used in early medieval Ireland typically as a farmstead, defined by one or more banks and ditches. It is gone now, levelled into the rough grazing land around it, leaving nothing obvious on the surface to suggest what was once there.

The site is known primarily because it was recorded on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1842, where it appeared as a circular enclosure roughly 35 metres in diameter. That map, produced as part of one of the most thorough topographic surveys of nineteenth-century Ireland, caught the feature at a moment when it was still legible in the landscape. Walsh, writing in 1985, catalogued it among the earthworks of the region, and excavation work recorded in 2001 added a further layer of documentation. By the time those later records were compiled, the physical structure had already been lost to agricultural levelling, a fate that has befallen a significant proportion of Ireland's ringforts over the past two centuries.

What remains is, in a sense, the record rather than the place. The 1842 map becomes the closest thing to a visit anyone can now make, a cartographic ghost of an enclosure that sheltered early medieval life somewhere beneath what is now ordinary grazing ground in east Cork.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Ringfort (Rath), Moneygurney, Co. Cork. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement