Ringfort (Rath), Mullaghroe, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Mullaghroe, Co. Cork

What survives at Mullaghroe tells only part of the story.

A ringfort, or rath, is an early medieval enclosed settlement, typically circular, formed by one or more earthen banks and ditches. This one sits towards the top of a gently south-facing slope in pasture land, and what is striking about it is how much it has changed even within living memory. Recorded consistently on Ordnance Survey maps from 1842 through to 1938 as a clear circular enclosure of roughly 50 metres diameter, the site was reportedly partially levelled around 1982. The earthworks that remain have since been absorbed into the surrounding field fence system, their banks doing quiet double duty as modern boundaries.

The most detailed early account of the site comes from Bowman, writing in 1934, who described it as double-ramparted, meaning it had two concentric banks rather than the single ring more commonly encountered. At that time, on land belonging to a D. O'Leary, the outer rampart stood between five and seven feet high, the inner rampart rose to around seven feet measured from the base of the fosse, and the intervening fosse, the ditch between the two banks, was some nineteen feet wide. Those proportions suggest a reasonably substantial enclosure by the standards of the type. What survives today is more modest: a roughly oval earthen bank, measuring about 51 metres east to west and 47.5 metres north to south, with an interior height of 1.3 metres on the southern and western arc where the bank is most intact, dropping to a barely perceptible rise of around 20 centimetres elsewhere. Mature deciduous trees have taken root along the bank, and some stone facing is visible on the outer face, likely added or reinforced when the bank was integrated into the field boundary.

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