Ringfort (Rath), Killedan, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Killedan, Co. Mayo

Whoever chose this spot in Killedan, Co. Mayo, knew what they were doing.

The ringfort here sits on a pronounced ridge running northeast to southwest, positioned so that the ground drops away on two sides, giving whoever lived or worked within it a clear line of sight across the landscape to the north and east. To the southwest, a higher ridge looks down over it, which would have been a consideration for any early medieval farmer or landholder. The Pollagh River runs roughly 360 metres to the southeast, close enough to matter.

A rath, as this type of earthwork is commonly called, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches. This example survives as a raised subcircular platform measuring just under thirty metres across in both directions, its edges defined by a scarp rather than a formal bank. The scarp varies in height around the circuit, reaching 1.8 metres on the western side and dropping to around 1.1 metres at the northeast. On the eastern side, facing gently sloping ground, there is a low, spread depression in the scarp roughly four metres wide, which may preserve the position of the original entrance. The interior is not entirely flat; a slight spine runs through the northwestern half, and the ground tilts more sharply down toward the north-northeast. A field fence that once cut across the southeastern edge of the monument, visible on a six-inch Ordnance Survey map from 1931, has since been removed, leaving the outline a little cleaner than it would have appeared for much of the twentieth century.

The rath sits in pasture and is largely covered in grass, with a thicket of gorse gathered along its southwestern edge. The gorse can obscure the scarp in that section, but the earthwork is otherwise reasonably legible on the ground, particularly along the western and southern sides where the drop in height is most pronounced.

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