Ringfort (Rath), Newtowncliffony, Co. Sligo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Newtowncliffony, Co. Sligo

On a ridge above rough pasture near Newtowncliffony in County Sligo, a circular depression in the ground marks what was once an early medieval farmstead.

The dished interior, roughly 23.6 metres across, is the clearest sign that something deliberate once shaped this land, though the earthen and stone bank that originally enclosed it has been worn down to almost nothing, standing in places barely ten centimetres above the surrounding ground and rising only to about a metre at its most visible stretches.

This is a rath, the most common form of ringfort in Ireland, typically built between the sixth and tenth centuries as the enclosed homestead of a farming family. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation, but many, like this one, have been quietly absorbed into the working landscape over the centuries. Here, a section of the original bank running from the south-southwest around to the west-northwest has been modified and folded into an existing field boundary, which is a common fate for these monuments in areas of continuous agricultural use. Unlike many ringforts, this example has no fosse, the surrounding ditch that usually accompanies the enclosing bank, and no trace of an original entrance survives. What remains is a faint but legible outline, enough to suggest the scale of the enclosed space and the effort that once went into shaping it.

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Pete F
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