Ringfort (Rath), Rathcaled, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
At Rathcaled in County Westmeath, a low hill carries the remains of an early medieval ringfort that has been quietly absorbed into the modern landscape.
A road now traces its western and north-western perimeter, and a field fence cuts straight through the south-western arc of the enclosure, both features added after 1837. What survives of the original earthen bank, a ringfort being a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more raised banks and ditches, typically built as a farmstead or defended homestead during the early medieval period, is only partially legible. The bank can be traced from the south-east around to the south-west, but much of the circuit has been levelled. The entrance gap, just under two metres wide, opens at the south-south-east, a common enough orientation for such sites.
The interior holds several features worth attention. A long, irregular mound of earth and stones runs roughly east-north-east to west-south-west across much of the northern quadrant, its origin unclear. More intriguing are two depressions in the western quadrant, interpreted as the remnants of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber associated with early medieval settlement, often used for storage or refuge. The monument sits at a spot height of 235 feet, and a small mound in the north-western quadrant is likely what remains of the trigonometrical station that marked this elevation on every edition of the six-inch Ordnance Survey maps. The Irishtown River, which forms the boundary with Paddinstown Lower, runs approximately 140 metres to the south.
The site commands good views across the surrounding grassland in all directions, which may help explain why this particular hill was chosen for settlement in the first place. The enclosure measures approximately 32 metres across from north to south, a modest but not unusual size for a rural rath of this type. The layering of the monument is part of what makes it quietly interesting: an early medieval enclosure, later mapped by nineteenth-century surveyors who planted their own marker within it, and now bisected by roads and fences that belong to a still more recent reorganisation of the land.
