Ringfort (Rath), Templemary, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Ringforts
A modern field boundary has sliced straight through this early medieval enclosure in the level pastures of Templemary, north County Cork, cutting it off-centre so that the monument now belongs, awkwardly, to two different fields.
That division has produced an odd split personality: the western portion retains a heavily overgrown earthen bank, still rising to about a metre on its outer face, while the eastern side has been worn down to little more than a low rise in the ground, with only a faint, shallow depression hinting at what was once a surrounding fosse.
The site is a rath, the most common type of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically consisting of a circular earthen bank and external ditch thrown up to define a farmstead and provide a degree of security for its inhabitants and their livestock. This example measures roughly 29 metres north to south and just over 28 metres east to west, placing it within the standard size range for a single-family enclosure. Thousands of similar raths survive across Ireland in varying states of preservation, but few illustrate quite so clearly how agricultural reorganisation over the centuries can bisect an ancient monument without erasing it entirely. The interior of this one, on the eastern side of the field boundary at least, remains open and is still used for grazing, much as it likely was when the enclosure was first constructed somewhere between the fifth and twelfth centuries.