Ringfort (Rath), Carrowmore, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Carrowmore, Co. Mayo

A low ridge in Carrowmore, Co. Mayo carries something easy to miss from a distance: a ringfort whose western scarp rises to 3.5 metres, forming a raised platform that was clearly designed to dominate the valley below rather than simply to occupy it.

Ringforts, or raths, are enclosed farmsteads typically dating from the early medieval period, built from earthen banks and ditches to define and defend a household's territory. This one is bivallate, meaning it has two lines of enclosure, a detail that places it among the more substantial examples of the type.

The platform itself measures roughly 65 metres north-north-west to south-south-east and about 45 metres across, with the outer enclosure taking the form of a fosse, a ditch cut into the hillside, portions of which survive as a shallow depression. On the south-south-west to north-north-east arc, the fosse widens into a flat terrace nearly 2.5 metres across, bounded by a low bank of earth and stone that may follow the line of an original outer rampart, though it has since been absorbed into a modern field fence. The entrance has not been formally identified, but the scarp is noticeably lower to the east, and a possible gap at the east-south-east is obscured by a fence that cuts across that side. Somebody, at some point, also quarried a semicircular pit roughly 10 metres across into the northern scarp, a later intrusion that has taken a visible bite out of the monument. From the rath's position on the ridge, views open westward along the Gweestion River valley, the river running about 60 metres from the site, with the rolling terrain of north Mayo stretching beyond.

The interior is still largely open at its centre, where a slight circular rise of perhaps 6 to 8 metres in diameter can be made out, most clearly on the northern arc, though ferns cover much of the ground. The outer edge of the rath is densely fringed with blackthorn, hawthorn, and hazel, and brambles are gradually pressing inward from the margins. The relationship between the earthworks and the several field fences that now cross or merge with the site takes some patience to read on the ground, but the core structure remains substantially intact.

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Pete F
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