Ringfort (Rath), Roosky, Co. Monaghan

The platform measures roughly 25 metres across in both directions, and its eastern edge is still defined by a low scarp dropping about 45 centimetres to the surrounding ground. That subtle drop in the land is, in a sense, all that remains of an early medieval farmstead.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed settlement built throughout Ireland roughly between the 5th and 12th centuries. Most were the homes of farming families of moderate status, their circular banks and ditches serving as much for marking territory and keeping livestock as for any serious defence. The fosse, or surrounding ditch, that typically accompanied such an enclosure has left no trace here, and no original entrance is visible. A later field bank running roughly north to south has further complicated the picture, cutting across the western perimeter and effectively erasing that portion of the monument. Only the arc running from the north-north-west, around the east, and back to the south-west still holds its shape in the landscape.