Skehanagh Fort, Ballyvicmaha, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
In the pastureland of Ballyvicmaha, a low earthen ring sits on a gentle rise in the Mayo landscape, unremarkable at first glance but carrying a local memory that changes how you look at it.
The interior of this rath, a type of enclosed circular settlement commonly built in early medieval Ireland using an earthen bank rather than stone, is said by tradition to have served as a children's burial ground. That association places it among a scattered but significant category of Irish sites known informally as cilliní, unconsecrated burial places where unbaptised infants and others excluded from Church graveyards were interred. The low, oblong heap of stones near the centre of the enclosure, measuring roughly six metres east to west, sits in silence on that slightly raised ground, neither explained nor formally excavated.
The site appears by name on Ordnance Survey six-inch maps from both 1838 and 1922, which at minimum confirms that the local designation is long-established. The rath itself is roughly circular, about 37.8 metres east to west and 35 metres north to south, defined by an earthen bank that varies considerably in preservation. The western half retains the most integrity, where the bank broadens to nearly seven metres and carries a substantial external face. On the southern half, the builders compensated for a natural fall in the ground by building the bank up rather than cutting into the slope, a practical engineering decision that speaks to the care once taken over its construction. The internal face is more degraded, particularly to the south, though the external slope remains pronounced along much of the circuit. A field wall added at some later date runs along the north to south-east stretch, following the curve of the bank closely rather than cutting across it, suggesting whoever built it still recognised the older boundary as worth respecting. Cultivation ridges running roughly east to west also cross the interior, evidence that the enclosed space was put to agricultural use at some point after the rath's original function had ended.
The site sits in open pasture with good views across the surrounding terrain, and the bank, though eroded in places and interrupted by several narrow gaps, is still legible as a coherent form from within the enclosure. There is no clearly defined original entrance, so the eye is left to read the landscape without an obvious starting point, which is perhaps fitting for a place whose history has settled into local memory rather than formal record.