Ringfort (Rath), Cloonineen, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
In a field near Cloonineen in County Galway, a slight rise in the ground is almost all that remains of what was once a substantial enclosure.
The site is classified as a possible rath, a type of ringfort, typically a circular or oval earthwork enclosing a farmstead during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries. What makes this particular example quietly interesting is not what survives but what the historical record reveals about how thoroughly it has disappeared.
The 1838 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map recorded it as a subcircular embanked enclosure, measuring approximately 42 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west. By the time of the 1946 to 1947 revision, the mapped outline had shifted noticeably, showing a more oval shape of around 61 metres north to south and 43 metres east to west, with a tree plantation occupying the south-western quadrant of the interior. Whether that difference reflects genuine change to the earthwork, improved surveying, or some combination of both is not clear. What is certain is that since that mid-twentieth-century mapping, the enclosing bank has effectively vanished, and the trees have been removed as well. Only the raised platform at the centre of the site gives any indication that something once stood here.