Ringfort (Rath), Russagh, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Ringforts
In a pasture field at Russagh in west Cork, a low circular platform rises nearly a metre above the surrounding ground, its interior now colonised by a ring of deciduous trees.
To a passing eye it might read as a clump of woodland, or a slight irregularity in the grazing land. It is, in fact, an early medieval ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead built in their thousands across Ireland roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and this one has been quietly mouldering into the landscape ever since.
The earthwork measures approximately 23 metres north to south and 25 metres east to west, making it a fairly modest example of its kind. A defining earthen bank, still standing around 0.8 metres high on its inner face, runs from the south-south-west around to the north-north-west. What makes the construction slightly unusual is that the outer face of this bank was stone-faced, suggesting a degree of effort and material investment beyond the purely functional. The bank is now badly eroded, and much of that facing has presumably slumped or been robbed over the centuries. The whole structure sits on level ground at the top of a north-facing slope, a position that would have offered some practical advantages in terms of drainage and visibility, even if it lacks the more dramatic elevated settings that some ringforts exploit.
