Ringfort (Rath), Tonnagh, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Tonnagh, Co. Mayo

Tucked into pasture near the southern edge of Tonnagh townland in County Mayo, this early medieval ringfort carries a particular weight beyond its earthworks.

The circular raised interior, roughly 33 to 35 metres across, was used at some point as a children's burial ground, a practice known in Irish as a cillín. These informal gravesites, found across Ireland in locations set apart from consecrated ground, were used for unbaptised infants and others considered ineligible for churchyard burial. The choice of a pre-existing ringfort for such a purpose was not unusual; the perceived antiquity and liminality of such enclosures made them suitable, in the folk imagination, for those who existed between categories.

The structure itself is a rath, the most common type of ringfort, built from earth rather than stone. A substantial earthen bank defines the circuit, rising to about 1.4 metres on the exterior at the south-west and slightly higher on the north-east. Beyond that inner bank lies a fosse, a defensive ditch roughly four metres wide in places, with a further outer bank beyond it. This double-enclosure arrangement, with bank, ditch, and counterscarp bank, indicates a reasonably well-resourced construction. Much of the inner bank has been reduced over time to little more than a scarp, though the southern and south-western sections survive in better condition. Collapsed stone scattered across the outer bank turns out to be the remains of a field wall built directly on top of it at some later date, a fairly common form of agricultural reuse. A probable entrance survives at the south-east, marked by corresponding gaps in the inner and outer banks, though boulders now partially block the way. A shallow depression about five metres across sits near the western interior, edged with brambles, its origin unclear.

The site sits roughly 200 metres south of the meandering Course River, in a landscape of mixed grassland and bog. The interior is largely level, with a slight rise in the north-west quadrant, and is ringed with hawthorn, ash, beech, and sycamore. A small stand of mature beech trees grows inside the enclosure alongside clumps of blackthorn and brambles, the kind of dense, slightly unkempt vegetation that often marks out a cillín site, where people have traditionally been reluctant to cut or clear.

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