Ringfort (Rath), Rathroeen, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Rathroeen, Co. Mayo

At the centre of this ringfort in Rathroeen, County Mayo, there is no open ground to speak of.

Someone, at some point, dug a large irregular pit into the middle of it, roughly 21 metres east to west and 16 metres north to south, to a depth of 1.4 metres, and left a heap of stones in the base. The remaining interior, what little survives undisturbed around the pit's edge, has since been planted with conifers, now fully mature. The result is a site that has been hollowed out, obscured, and quietly absorbed into the working landscape around it.

A rath is a ringfort of earthen construction, typically dating from the early medieval period in Ireland, roughly the sixth to tenth centuries, and generally understood to have served as a farmstead enclosed for security. This example sits on top of a low ridge, positioned at the break of slope on its southern side, which would have given its original occupants a clear view over the gently undulating grassland below. The enclosing bank is circular, measuring 31 metres in both directions, with a notably narrow profile and an almost vertical external face. Outside the bank, between the southeast and west, runs a low berm-like terrace, two to two and a half metres wide, edged by a slight scarp. What is striking about the bank itself is how modest it is compared to other raths in the area. Its form so closely resembles the ordinary field banks of the surrounding landscape that it appears to have been modified over time, most likely absorbed into later field boundaries as the land around it was divided and managed for agriculture. Field boundaries on an east to west axis now abut the bank at both the east and west. The site's original geometry has, in other words, been gradually renegotiated by centuries of ordinary farming, until the monument and the working field system have become difficult to separate.

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