Ringfort (Rath), Drumrane, Co. Cavan
Co. Cavan |
Ringforts
Beneath a house in Drumrane, Co. Cavan, there is, or rather was, a ringfort.
A rath, to use the Irish term, is a circular earthwork enclosure, typically dating from the early medieval period, built from raised banks of earth and used as a farmstead or settlement. This one sits on the summit of a drumlin hill, those rounded, oval-shaped ridges left behind by retreating glaciers that give so much of Cavan and Monaghan their distinctive rumpled landscape. The elevated position would have been deliberate; a rath on a drumlin crown commands good sightlines in every direction, useful for anyone keeping watch over cattle or neighbouring territory. Today, though, there is nothing to see. A dwelling occupies the site, and the feature is not visible at ground level.
The Ordnance Survey's first edition map of 1836 records the feature confidently, marked simply as 'Fort', which suggests it was still a recognisable earthwork at that point, or at least that its local identity as a fort was firmly established in living memory. By the 1876 edition, the designation had changed to 'Site of', that quiet cartographic demotion that signals something has been levelled, built over, or ploughed away in the intervening decades. The shift from one edition to the other is a small piece of documentary archaeology in itself, a record of loss compressed into a change of two words on a map.
