Ringfort, Gortnahorna, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
In a field of grassland in north Galway, about two hundred metres from an unnamed stream, a slightly lopsided oval in the landscape marks the outline of an early medieval farmstead that has been quietly subsiding into the earth for well over a thousand years.
The earthwork measures roughly 36 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and 32 metres on the other, dimensions typical of the small enclosures that once dotted the Irish countryside in their tens of thousands.
This is a rath, the commonest type of Irish ringfort, built by enclosing a circular or near-circular area with one or more earthen banks and accompanying ditches. Here there are two concentric banks with a fosse, the wide ditch between them, which together would have defined and defended a single farmstead and its household during the early Christian period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. The site survives in fair condition overall, though quarrying activity has eaten into the fosse and the outer bank along the eastern and southeastern arc, leaving that side noticeably degraded. The northwestern stretch of the outer bank is the best-preserved section, where the original profile of the earthwork still gives a reasonable impression of its former scale.