Ringfort (Rath), Shrone, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Ringforts
Two low earthen banks jut westward from the outer wall of this Kerry ringfort like a pair of arms reaching towards a field boundary, a feature unusual enough to make surveyors pause.
Most raths, the circular or sub-circular earthen enclosures built across Ireland during the early medieval period, follow a fairly predictable template: a bank, a ditch, an entrance, and a roughly circular interior. The Shrone example largely fits that pattern, but those projecting banks on the western and north-western sides, each about four metres wide and sixty centimetres high, extend outward for up to nine metres before meeting an existing field boundary running north to south. Their purpose is not entirely clear, and that ambiguity is part of what makes the site quietly interesting.
The rath sits on gently sloping pastureland and measures approximately 36 metres north to south and 37 metres east to west, making it a reasonably substantial example of its type. A univallate rath, meaning one enclosed by a single bank rather than two or three concentric ones, it features the classic U-shaped external fosse, the ditch that runs around the outside of the bank, here between two and three metres wide and about half a metre deep. The enclosing bank itself is more pronounced on its outer face, rising to a maximum of 2.2 metres on the exterior while standing only around 0.7 metres above the interior ground level, which gives the interior a somewhat sunken, sheltered quality. An entrance on the southern side, roughly ten metres wide, is discernible despite the numerous cattle breaks that have eroded the bank at various points over the centuries. The site was documented in the North Kerry Archaeological Survey, compiled by C. Toal and published in 1995, which remains the primary descriptive source for the monument.