Ringfort (Rath), Racomane, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Racomane, Co. Kerry

Sitting in open pasture on a north-east-facing slope in County Kerry, this ringfort presents one of those quiet puzzles that reward close attention.

The enclosure is roughly circular, measuring 36 metres north-east to south-west and 34 metres north-west to south-east, and its boundary changes character as it goes around. On the east to north-west arc, an earth and stone bank defines the edge, around 2.3 metres wide and rising to 1.4 metres on the interior side. On the north-west to east arc, a scarp takes over, dropping away some 1.5 metres on the exterior face, with a slight lip on the inner side. Trees have taken hold along the bank over time, giving the circuit a broken, overgrown quality from certain angles. Inside, the ground is not uniform: the south-western half sits level, while the north-eastern half tilts downward with the slope of the hill.

Ringforts, sometimes called raths, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, roughly from the fifth to the twelfth century. They typically enclosed a family farmstead, with the enclosing bank serving as much as a boundary marker and stock enclosure as any serious defensive structure. The variation at Racomane, where a built bank on one side gives way to a cut scarp on the other, likely reflects the pragmatic use of the natural hillside; less construction was needed where the slope itself provided the drop. The site may well be the same rath recorded in a Schools Manuscript from the 1940s as being situated at Rathcommane, a placename that carries the Irish word rath within it and suggests the feature was locally recognised and named long before any formal survey took note of it.

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Pete F
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