Ringfort (Rath), Ranaghan, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Ringforts
Scattered across the Irish countryside in their thousands, ringforts are so common that they can begin to blur into the landscape, yet each one marks a distinct moment of human settlement, a family or small community enclosing their world behind an earthen bank sometime between the early medieval period and the end of the first millennium.
The rath at Ranaghan, in County Clare, is one such enclosure, a circular or near-circular earthwork defined by a raised bank and, typically, an outer fosse or ditch, built to demarcate a farmstead and offer a degree of protection for people and livestock alike.
The word rath refers specifically to this type of earthen ringfort, as distinct from a cashel, which performs the same function using a stone wall. Clare, with its mix of lowland pasture and karst limestone country, contains examples of both, and the presence of a rath at Ranaghan suggests the area supported settled agricultural life during the early Christian centuries, roughly 500 to 1000 AD. These were not defensive fortifications in any military sense but working farms, the homes of ordinary farming families, and the banks that survive today are the eroded remains of what were once more substantial earthworks enclosing a central living area.
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