Ringfort (Rath), Mountplummer, Co. Limerick

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Mountplummer, Co. Limerick

A canopy of mature oaks growing inside an ancient enclosure is an unusual sight, and at Mountplummer in County Limerick the combination produces something quietly arresting.

The trees have taken hold within a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Thousands of these earthwork enclosures survive across Ireland, but relatively few are so thoroughly colonised by old-growth woodland, giving this one an atmosphere rather different from the open, grazed examples more commonly encountered.

The site sits on an east-facing slope, just below the brow of a hill, with a stream running approximately fifty metres to the south. It is near-circular in plan, measuring 43.3 metres north to south and 43.5 metres east to west, and is defined by an earthen bank with an internal height of 1.25 metres and an external height of 2.2 metres. Beyond the bank lies a fosse, the term for a surrounding ditch, which here is 0.7 metres deep and 3.3 metres wide. A field boundary has been laid out so that it skirts the outer edge of the fosse from the south-south-west round to the north-west, a practical accommodation that also suggests the enclosure has long been recognised as something worth steering around rather than ploughing through. The details were compiled and recorded by Denis Power, with the record uploaded in August 2011.

Access is informal rather than managed; the site sits in pasture and cattle have worn a gap of roughly nine metres into the eastern bank, which serves as the main opening into the interior. The ground inside slopes gently downward toward the east, and the rough pasture underfoot is shaded heavily by the oak canopy overhead. Visitors approaching from the east will enter through that cattle-worn breach and should be prepared for uneven, potentially damp ground beneath the trees. The fosse, though partially silted, remains visible on a circuit of the outer bank. The site rewards a slow walk around the perimeter as much as time spent inside, since the relationship between the bank, the ditch, and the encircling field boundary is clearest from the outside looking in.

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