Ringfort (Rath), Scurmore, Co. Sligo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Scurmore, Co. Sligo

On a low ridge running north to south above the eastern shore of the Moy Estuary in County Sligo, there is nothing left to see.

That absence is itself the point. A ringfort, or rath, once occupied this elevated ground, a circular earthen enclosure of the kind that early medieval farming families across Ireland built as a combination of homestead and livestock enclosure, typically defined by one or more banks and ditches. The one at Scurmore measured somewhere between twenty-five and thirty metres in diameter, a modest but functional size within the broader range of such sites.

Its existence is known not from physical remains but from maps. Both the 1837 and 1913 editions of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map clearly depict a circular enclosure on this ridge, suggesting it was still traceable on the landscape well into the twentieth century. At some point between the later of those surveys and the present day, the enclosure was levelled, most likely through agricultural land clearance, and nothing is now visible at ground level. The site retains its townland name, Scurmore, and its position overlooking the estuary implies it once commanded a meaningful view across low-lying terrain toward the Moy, though what significance that orientation held for whoever built it can only be guessed at.

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