Ringfort (Rath), Urard, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Urard, Co. Tipperary

Somebody chose this hilltop in Urard with considerable care.

The ringfort that survives here sits on elevated ground in open pasture, commanding a wide panoramic view in every direction, the kind of siting that was clearly deliberate and not incidental. That choice of position is one of the more readable things left to us, because the monument itself has not fared especially well over the centuries.

A ringfort, or rath, is one of the most common monument types in the Irish landscape, typically a circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used as a farmstead or defended residence during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. The example at Urard is now heavily overgrown, but its essential structure can still be traced. The interior measures approximately 41 metres in diameter on a northwest to southeast axis, enclosed by an earth and stone bank with a fosse, the term for the accompanying ditch, running outside it. Beyond that lies a further outer bank, though this secondary element may be a later field boundary rather than an original part of the design. The entrance gap, four metres wide, faces east. In the northwest quadrant, traces of what may be an outer fosse are also discernible, even though much of that area has been largely levelled over time.

The vegetation that has taken hold across the site makes a full reading of its layout difficult from ground level, but the dimensions recorded suggest a monument of reasonable scale. The outer bank and fosse, where they survive, point to a site that was once more elaborately defined than a simple single-bank enclosure, which may hint at a household of some local consequence, though the archaeology alone cannot say more than that.

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