Settlement platform, Rochfort Demesne, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Settlement Sites
What looks at first glance like a low, unremarkable shelf of stone on the marshy southern shore of Lough Ennell is, on closer reading, something considerably stranger.
The ground beneath your feet here was once a lakebed, and this small limestone platform, measuring roughly five metres by six and rising only half a metre above the waterlogged soil, would originally have sat in about a metre of water, some five metres out from the ancient shoreline. Large irregular limestone slabs, some over a metre in length, are scattered across its surface with an evenness that suggests human intention rather than simple geology.
The platform was identified by Karkov and Ruffing in the early 1990s as part of a cluster of similar features along the eastern shoreline of Rochfort Bay, and later examined in detail by Aidan O'Sullivan. Its shape is almost rectilinear, and it sits on what was formerly the lakebed to the south of a related feature known as Rochfort Demesne 3. The broader significance of the site lies in its proximity to other early medieval monuments in the area. A crannóg, which is an artificial or partially artificial island dwelling used throughout prehistoric and early medieval Ireland, sits on Goose Island roughly 420 metres to the north. A mound at Rochfort Demesne lies about 550 metres to the east. O'Sullivan has suggested that this platform may be prehistoric or medieval in date and could have been associated with the crannóg community at Goose Islands, perhaps serving as a landing place, a fish trap support, or some form of lakeshore working area, though its precise function remains unresolved. The question of whether people built on it, moored beside it, or simply used it as a convenient hard surface amid shallow water has not been answered.