Ringfort (Rath), Bauravilla, Co. Cork

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Bauravilla, Co. Cork

In the pastureland of Bauravilla in West Cork, a slightly raised circular area sits quietly on a break in a north-west-facing slope, doing a reasonable impression of ordinary ground.

It is, in fact, the remains of a rath, the Irish term for an earthen ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead that served as the basic unit of rural settlement across Ireland from roughly the early medieval period through to around the twelfth century. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of decay, but each one represents what was once a working homestead, its bank and ditch marking the boundary between a farming family's domestic space and the wider world.

This particular example is roughly forty metres across on its north-south axis, enclosed by an earthen bank that still stands to about 1.9 metres in height along its south-east to north-north-east arc. To the south, a shallow external fosse, essentially a ditch dug to provide material for the bank and to reinforce the boundary, survives to a depth of around 0.3 metres. The enclosure has not escaped the steady pressure of later land use entirely. A field boundary running north to south cuts across and truncates the eastern side, a reminder that agricultural convenience has always competed with archaeological survival. The interior and much of the bank are heavily overgrown, which is common enough for sites that have passed out of active memory and into the background texture of a working farm.

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Pete F
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