Ringfort (Rath), Tullahennel, Co. Kerry

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Tullahennel, Co. Kerry

On a rise in Tullahennel, north County Kerry, a roughly oval enclosure sits quietly in the landscape, its earthen banks worn low but still legible after more than a thousand years.

The interior measures approximately 25 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west, which is a fairly typical size for a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the kind of enclosed farmstead that was once the dominant dwelling form of early medieval Ireland. What makes this one worth a second look is less any individual feature than the combination of setting and survival: the view from the earthwork is extensive in all directions, and a neighbouring holy well, Tobernaseeth, lies just to the east, the two sites sitting close enough together to suggest this corner of north Kerry held some significance in the early Christian period.

The enclosure follows a form common across Ireland, a sub-circular area bounded by an earthen bank with an exterior fosse, meaning a ditch, dug around the outside. The fosse here can be traced from the north-west around to the west, and again from the east to the south, running between two and four metres wide and sitting roughly 0.6 metres below the level of the surrounding ground. The bank itself survives to an average external height of about half a metre, modest but measurable. The most compromised section is to the south-east, where the bank has been largely levelled, with only a short remnant, six metres long, three metres wide, and around 0.6 metres high, still standing. The damage is typical of agricultural land, where centuries of ploughing and field clearance gradually erode earthworks that were once considerably more imposing.

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Pete F
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