Ringfort (Rath), Rockfield, Co. Mayo

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Ringfort (Rath), Rockfield, Co. Mayo

What makes this ringfort quietly arresting is not what remains but what the maps reveal has been lost.

A rath, the Irish term for a circular earthen enclosure used as a farmstead during the early medieval period, typically between the fifth and twelfth centuries, appeared as a complete circle on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1838. By the 1917 edition, it had already become penannular, meaning open on one side like a broken ring, with a substantial gap at the east-southeast. Today, the eastern half has vanished entirely, levelled to the point where nothing registers at ground level. A modern field fence now cuts straight across where the enclosure once curved.

What survives sits in rough pasture on the north bank of a small eastward-flowing stream, on level, damp ground with rising land pressing in from both south and north. The views are restricted in most directions, which gives the place an enclosed, somewhat sunken quality. The western arc of the bank, measuring roughly 26.6 metres north-northeast to south-southwest, is composed of gravelly earth and stands no more than 0.7 metres on its outer face, rising to just 0.25 metres on the interior. At the south-southwest, the outer face climbs to 1.8 metres where it merges with the stream gully below. A few large stones jutting from the base of the western slope may be remnants of original stone facing, suggesting the bank was once more formally constructed than its present dilapidated state implies. A dense clump of blackthorn now fills the northwest quadrant of the interior. Approximately 30 metres to the north lies a second possible rath, raising the intriguing prospect that this was once a paired or clustered settlement in the early medieval landscape.

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