Ringfort (Rath), Skarragh, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Skarragh, Co. Cork

What remains of this ringfort at Skarragh is, by any measure, subtle.

The earthwork has been levelled, and what was once a D-shaped enclosure, clearly visible on the 1842 Ordnance Survey six-inch map as a hachured outline with a straight side running roughly thirty metres east to west and projecting about twenty-five metres southward, is now little more than a low rise tracing a circular area of around twenty-four metres in diameter. To the north, a field boundary has replaced whatever bank or ditch once closed that side of the enclosure.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when defined primarily by earthen banks, were the typical enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, generally dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation, but many, like this one at Skarragh, have been gradually eroded by centuries of agricultural use. The 1842 map records the enclosure at a moment when its D-shape was still legible from the ground, suggesting the levelling occurred sometime in the later nineteenth or twentieth century. The site sits on a north-facing slope above the Blackwater River valley, where the land drops away steeply, a position typical of ringfort placement, offering both a commanding view and a degree of natural defensive advantage on at least one side.

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