Ringfort, Skreen Beg, Co. Sligo

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Ringforts

Ringfort, Skreen Beg, Co. Sligo

In a gently undulating field in Skreen Beg, County Sligo, a faint circular swell in the pasture is almost all that remains of what was once an enclosed farmstead, probably dating to early medieval Ireland.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths or lios depending on regional usage, were the most common form of rural settlement in Ireland between roughly the sixth and twelfth centuries. They typically consisted of a circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks, called a rampart, and an accompanying ditch, or fosse, designed to protect a family's home and livestock. This one is easy to miss.

The site measures approximately nineteen metres east to west and eighteen metres north to south, a modest example of the form. The enclosing bank of earth and stone survives, but only barely, standing no more than thirty centimetres above the interior ground level and spread to a width of around two and a half metres, suggesting considerable erosion and disturbance over centuries. Along the north-eastern to eastern arc, the bank has been removed entirely, its former line now indicated only by a scatter of field clearance rubble, the kind of loose stone that accumulates when farmers have cleared and worked land over generations. No fosse is visible at ground level, and the original entrance cannot be identified. What survives is essentially a ghost of the structure, legible as a ringfort mainly because the slight raise of the interior platform still holds its circular shape against the surrounding pasture.

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Pete F
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