Ringfort (Rath), Lismoy, Co. Longford

The rath at Lismoy sits on a low rise in pasture, and to the untrained eye it might read as nothing more than a slight irregularity in the ground. What remains is a circular area of roughly thirty-five metres in diameter, its edge marked by a scarp, a low earthen slope, between about ninety centimetres and one and a half metres high. The ditch that once ran around the outside, known as a fosse, has vanished entirely, and whatever gap once served as the original entrance can no longer be identified.

Raths were the most common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around the sixth to the twelfth century. They were built of earth and served as farmsteads, the enclosing bank and ditch offering security for a household and its livestock rather than any serious military defence. The Lismoy example has been partially levelled over time, most likely through generations of agricultural activity, which accounts for the loss of the fosse and the reduced height of the surviving scarp. What once would have been a more pronounced circular earthwork is now a subdued presence, legible mainly as a gentle change in the contour of the land.