Ringfort (Rath), Rathclogh, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Ringforts
On the eastern flank of a prominent hillock in County Tipperary, a roughly oval earthwork sits quietly among tillage fields, its presence easy to miss unless you know what the slight rise and dip of the ground is telling you.
This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead that was the dominant settlement form in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation, but each one carries its own particular relationship with the land it occupies.
This example measures approximately 32 metres north to south and 29 metres east to west, defined not by an earthen bank in the conventional sense but by a scarp, essentially a shaped terrace cut into or built up from the ground surface. On the northwestern arc, where the natural hillside falls away steeply, the scarp is noticeably more substantial, reaching about 1.1 metres in height and 4 metres in width, as though the builders recognised they could rely on the natural topography to do some of the defensive work for them. The interior is broadly level, which would have made it functional as an enclosure. There is a low gap on the south-southwest side, around 2.2 metres wide, though this opening appears to be of modern origin rather than the original entrance. More damaging has been quarrying activity on the eastern side of the hillock, which has disturbed the monument in its eastern sector, leaving that portion of the earthwork compromised in a way the rest is not.