Settlement platform, Rochfort Demesne, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Settlement Sites
On the eastern shore of Rochfort Bay, where Lough Ennell reaches into a small inlet, a low oval platform of limestone sits in the lake water on a natural bedrock outcrop.
It is modest in scale, roughly 28 metres north to south and 24 metres east to west, rising only about a metre above the waterline, but what makes it quietly arresting is the question of what it once was. Large irregular limestone slabs are scattered across its even surface, and one particularly substantial block may be a glacial erratic, a boulder carried and deposited by ice sheets long before any human hand shaped the landscape. Whether the platform itself is prehistoric or medieval in origin remains unresolved.
The site was first identified as part of a cluster of rock platforms by Karkov and Ruffing in 1990 and 1991, and was later examined by Aidan O'Sullivan, whose 2004 analysis placed it in a compelling context. A crannóg, which is an artificial or partly artificial island used as a dwelling, typically in the early medieval period, lies 400 metres to the north at Goose Island. A mound of undetermined character sits 550 metres to the east within the same demesne. O'Sullivan noted that the platform would originally have been positioned some five to ten metres from the shoreline, meaning the encroachment of the lake water is itself a relatively recent development in geological terms. The proximity to the Goose Island crannóg raises the possibility that this rock platform was functionally linked to early medieval lake settlement in the area, perhaps used for fishing, landing, or storage, though no firm conclusion has been established.
The platform occupies a small peninsula that juts into the lake, and the inlet setting would make it relatively sheltered. Visitors approaching the eastern shore of Rochfort Bay should look for the natural limestone outcrops at the water's edge, keeping an eye out for the scatter of larger slabs on the surface that distinguish this feature from the surrounding bedrock.