Ringfort (Rath), Tullykenny, Co. Monaghan
Co. Monaghan |
Ringforts
What makes this particular site in Tullykenny, Co. Monaghan worth noting is precisely its absence.
A ringfort, or rath, once occupied a position just north of the summit of a drumlin ridge here, one of the low, rounded hills of glacial till that ripple across the Monaghan landscape. By the time anyone thought to record it properly, it was already in retreat; by 2000, it had been removed entirely.
When surveyors described the site in 1968, it presented as a raised, slightly dished D-shaped platform, measuring roughly 39 metres northwest to southeast and 28.8 metres northeast to southwest. A ringfort, in its most common form, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically circular or oval and defined by one or more earthen banks with an external ditch, known as a fosse. This one followed that broad pattern: an earthen bank ran along the southwestern arc, around 5 metres wide and standing 1.4 metres above the external ground surface, with traces of a fosse surviving along the western and northern sides. Farm buildings had already encroached on the southeastern edge, and a field bank had cut across the eastern side, obscuring whatever original entrance the enclosure might have had. The interior was grassed over and rush-covered, sloping gently down toward the northeast, the whole thing sitting quietly on its ridge while the working landscape pressed in around it. Sometime between that 1968 description and the year 2000, the monument was removed altogether, likely through agricultural clearance. No entrance was ever identified, no excavation recorded, and whatever the enclosed space once held remains unknown.