Ringfort (Rath), Paristown, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
On a prominent, steep hill in Paristown, County Westmeath, an early medieval ringfort survives in a quietly complicated state, part earthwork, part absorbed into the ordinary geometry of modern field boundaries.
Most of the enclosing bank has vanished into hedgerows and fences, leaving only the south-western arc still readable as an earthen feature. It is the kind of place where the past has been edited rather than erased, requiring a certain patience to read.
Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when they are earthen rather than stone-built, were the dominant settlement form in early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and its associated buildings within a raised bank and ditch. This particular example is sub-circular in plan, measuring roughly 24 metres from north-west to south-east and 16 metres across the shorter axis. What makes it more than a simple enclosure is the detail surviving inside. At the centre sits a sub-circular hut site with entrance gaps on the north-west and south-east sides, and attached to it is a semi-circular platform that functioned as an annexe, a secondary space perhaps for storage or livestock. The interior of the enclosure is further divided into five distinct areas by low earthen banks, suggesting a degree of internal organisation that goes beyond a single household space and hints at the complexity of daily life within what might easily be dismissed as a mound on a hill.