Ringfort (Rath), Rinville, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
On a south-east-facing slope in undulating grassland near Rinville in County Galway, the ground holds something that is easy to miss and harder to forget once you know to look.
What survives here is only part of what once stood: a ringfort, or rath, that originally comprised two concentric banks separated by a fosse, the ditch dug between them as part of the enclosure's defensive arrangement. The outer bank has vanished entirely from the surface, absorbed back into the pasture over the centuries. The inner bank, however, remains visible throughout its circuit, a broad sweep of earth and stone roughly 47 metres in diameter, with traces of stone-facing still legible along its southern arc.
Ringforts were the dominant form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically associated with farming families of some local standing, and thousands of them survive across the country in varying states of preservation. This one was noted by McCaffrey in 1952, who recorded its two-bank form, and had been remarked upon earlier still by Athy in 1914. The fosse, which traces a long curve from the south-south-east around through south and on to west-north-west, gives a clear sense of how the original enclosure was laid out, even where the banks themselves have been reduced. What makes this site particularly interesting is the presence of a souterrain in the north-west quadrant of the interior. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, typically associated with ringfort occupation and used variously for storage, refuge, or both. Their construction required considerable effort, which suggests the people who built and used this site invested seriously in it.