Ringfort (Rath), Nicker, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ringforts
A low oval swell in a field near Nicker, County Limerick, is easy to walk past without fully registering what you are looking at.
What survives here is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically serving as a farmstead enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches. Thousands once existed across the country; a great many have been ploughed flat or built over. This one is still here, pressed into a north-east-facing slope, its grass-covered interior level and apparently undisturbed.
The site was recorded by Denis Power and uploaded to the national monuments record in December 2013. The measurements give a reasonable sense of what time and agriculture have left behind. The enclosure is oval, running roughly 23 metres north to south and 19 metres east to west. The earthen bank that defines it has been partially levelled, standing only about 15 centimetres above the interior surface but rising to 1.25 metres on its outer face. Beyond the bank lies the fosse, the external ditch that would once have reinforced the enclosure's defensible character, which is nearly eight metres wide in places and waterlogged in parts of its circuit. The fosse survives best along the north-north-west to east arc and around the south-west to west-south-west. At the west-south-west there is also a faint trace of an outer bank, only about five metres in length and barely a quarter of a metre in height externally, suggesting the site may once have had a more complex, multi-vallate arrangement, though little of that secondary feature now remains.
The site sits in pasture, and because it is farmland rather than a managed heritage site, access would require the landowner's permission. The waterlogging in the fosse means the ground around the outer edges can be soft underfoot, particularly after wet weather, which is not an unusual condition in this part of Limerick. The interior offers little to see at ground level beyond the grass, but standing within the enclosed oval and reading the slight rises and dips of the surrounding earthworks gives a clearer sense of the original layout than any aerial photograph can. The outer bank fragment at the west-south-west is worth locating specifically, faint as it is, since it hints at layers of construction that the current condition of the site only partially discloses.