Hill Fort, Addergoole, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Enclosures

Hill Fort, Addergoole, Co. Galway

On a low ridge in the gently rolling grassland of Addergoole in north County Galway, an oval enclosure sits in a state of considerable deterioration, its outlines legible only to those who know what to look for.

Hill forts are among the more enigmatic monument types in the Irish landscape, large enclosed hilltop or ridgeline sites generally associated with the later prehistoric period, though their precise functions remain debated. This one measures roughly 75 metres north to south and 56 metres east to west, dimensions that suggest a substantial original structure, even if little of it now survives in recognisable form.

What remains is a degraded earthen bank running from the south-west around to the north, accompanied by an external fosse, the term for the ditch that typically flanked such a bank and from which the upcast material was thrown to build it. A berm, a flat shelf of ground between the inner and outer elements of a fortification, is still visible from the north-west to the north-east, hinting at a second, outer bank that has otherwise all but vanished. The interior has suffered particularly badly: quarrying activity at some point in the site's post-prehistoric life cut into the ground and removed most of what would have been the internal face of the bank, making it far harder to reconstruct the monument's original profile or phasing. It is a pattern seen at many Irish earthworks, where later agricultural or industrial use quietly dismantled the very structures that earlier generations had built.

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Pete F
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