Ringfort (Rath), Allykeolaun, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Allykeolaun, Co. Galway

On an east-facing slope in undulating Galway pastureland, there is a ringfort that has effectively vanished from the ground while remaining perfectly legible from the air.

That quiet contradiction is what makes it worth attention. Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, were enclosed farmsteads of the early medieval period, typically circular and defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches. This one at Allykeolaun was bivallate, meaning it had two concentric enclosing elements, which places it a step above the most common single-banked variety and hints at a household of some local consequence.

The Ordnance Survey's third-edition six-inch map, published in 1920, recorded the site as a roughly circular double enclosure reaching approximately 55 metres at its widest. Even then, the outer bank had been compromised: a field boundary running northwest to southeast had clipped its eastern side, and another wall running roughly east-northeast to west-southwest had cut across the south. By the time an inspection was carried out in May 1983, those centuries of agricultural pressure had done their work. The only trace visible on the ground was a shallow depression about 23 metres across, a faint echo of what had once been the inner enclosure. The outer bank had all but dissolved into the surrounding pasture. One of the field walls at the southern edge may actually be sitting on top of the original outer enclosing element, the modern boundary quietly recycling the line of the ancient one. What the ground conceals, aerial photography reveals: the full outline of the enclosure remains clearly visible in satellite imagery, its circular geometry preserved in the differential growth of the grass above it.

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