Ringfort (Rath), Rahoonagh, Co. Kerry

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Rahoonagh, Co. Kerry

What remains of this ringfort in Rahoonagh, County Kerry, is not much more than a gentle swelling in the ground, easy to walk past without a second glance.

And yet that almost imperceptible rise is the last trace of a univallate rath, a type of enclosed farmstead, typically circular, defined by a single earthen bank and ditch, that was once a common feature of the early medieval Irish landscape. Thousands of them survive across the country in varying states of preservation; this one barely qualifies.

The site was recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1841 to 1842, which captured it at a moment when it had already been compromised. Even then, a bohareen, a narrow rural laneway or track, had been cut straight through the middle of it, splitting the circular form in two. By the time the 1914 to 1915 revision was carried out, the rath was still mapworthy, suggesting some earthwork remained legible. Somewhere in the decades that followed, the site was levelled entirely, leaving only the faint topographical ghost that can be seen today. The broader context comes from C. Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995, which catalogued the rath among the area's many overlooked monuments.

There is little to guide a visitor in any practical sense. The slight rise above the surrounding land is the only physical indicator that something once stood here, and without prior knowledge of its location, it would pass without notice.

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Pete F
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