Ringfort (Rath), Tevrin, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Ringforts
On a low rocky hillock in County Westmeath, the remains of an early medieval ringfort sit quietly in the middle of working farmland, bisected by not one but two modern field fences.
That detail alone is worth pausing on. The fences cut straight through the monument's perimeter, one running northeast to southwest and a second intersecting at the northwest, which gives the site an oddly quartered appearance and speaks to centuries of agricultural life carrying on around and through a structure that was already old when the fields were first divided.
A ringfort, or rath, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank and sometimes a ditch, used in early Christian Ireland as a farmstead or place of settlement, typically dating from around the fifth to the twelfth century. This example at Tevrin measures approximately twenty-three metres across its north-to-south axis and is enclosed by a low, fragmentary bank of earth and stone. The bank incorporates a considerable amount of exposed rock, which reflects the underlying geology of the hillock itself; the interior is level ground, but with several areas of natural rock outcrop breaking the surface. There is a possible original entrance gap on the southeastern side, roughly 1.2 metres wide, though its fragmentary condition makes certainty difficult. The surrounding grassland undulates gently, and the elevated position of the site on its rocky outcrop would have offered reasonably clear sightlines in most directions, a practical consideration for anyone living here in the early medieval period.