Ringfort (Rath), Thurlesbeg, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Thurlesbeg, Co. Tipperary

A large oval of raised ground sits quietly in the grassland of Thurlesbeg, its enclosing bank still legible after more than a thousand years of agricultural use.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the type of enclosed farmstead that was the standard unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, roughly from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Tens of thousands once existed across the country; many have been ploughed flat or built over, which makes a surviving example worth pausing over.

The earthwork measures roughly 62 metres north to south and 69 metres east to west internally, making it a fairly substantial example. It sits on a south-east-facing slope of an east-west ridge, positioned to overlook the Arglo river some 50 metres to the south, a placement that would have made practical sense for anyone keeping watch over water, livestock, or movement through the valley below. The enclosing bank, built from earth and stone, still stands between one and four metres high on the southern side, though from the south-east round through to the south-west it has been reduced to a low scarp, worn down over centuries of grazing. A possible original entrance gap, around 4.4 metres wide, survives on this southern arc, though it appears to have been widened at some point. On the north-west side, a separate livestock gap of about 5 metres cuts through the bank, a practical modification that speaks to the site's long afterlife as ordinary farmland long after its original inhabitants had gone.

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Pete F
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