Ringfort (Rath), Moneymohill, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ringforts
A lime kiln has been built directly against the wall of an early medieval enclosure at Moneymohill, and that collision of two different eras of land use tells you quite a lot about how the Irish countryside has been layered and re-layered over the centuries.
The ringfort, or rath, a type of circular or oval enclosure typically formed from earthen banks and used as a farmstead during the early medieval period, sits on a north-facing slope in undulating pasture in County Limerick, quietly going about the business of surviving.
The enclosure is oval, measuring roughly 26 metres north to south and 22 metres east to west. Its boundary is formed partly by an earthen bank, which stands about 0.65 metres high on the interior and 1.3 metres on the exterior, running from the south-east around to the south-west. The remainder of the circuit is defined by a scarped edge, essentially a cut or shaped slope in the ground, 1.3 metres high and 5.5 metres wide, completing the enclosure from south-west back around to the south-east. At the north, a lime kiln, the kind of stone-built furnace once used across rural Ireland to burn limestone and produce quicklime for agricultural use, has been constructed directly against that scarped edge. The south-east portion of the scarp has been quarried away, almost certainly during the kiln's construction, meaning that the later industrial activity has permanently altered the earlier monument. The survey was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011.
The interior is level and grassed over, and in the north-east quadrant there is a shallow depression measuring about 3 metres by 2 metres and roughly 0.4 metres deep, with a corresponding upcast mound of similar dimensions sitting on its south side. Whether this depression represents an older feature, a collapsed structure, or disturbance associated with the kiln is not recorded. The site sits within working farmland, so access would depend on landowner permission. The lime kiln at the northern edge is the most legible feature from a distance, and it is worth pausing to consider the sequence: the rath was already ancient when someone chose its bank as a convenient wall against which to build a kiln, quarrying away part of what they found in order to do so.