Ringfort, Kilcommadan, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
In the undulating grassland of Kilcommadan in County Galway, a roughly circular earthwork sits quietly in the landscape, its double-banked outline still readable despite the slow damage of centuries.
This is a rath, the term used for a type of ringfort that was once the most common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically serving as a farmstead for a family of some local standing. What makes this one worth pausing over is the relative completeness of its design: two concentric earthen banks separated by a fosse, which is a deliberately dug ditch, give the enclosure a depth of defence that suggests it was built with some care.
The rath measures roughly 32 metres east to west and 29 metres north to south, making it a modest but solid example of the form. The outer bank survives best along the southern arc, where the profile of the earthwork remains clearest. At the western side, dumped clay and large stones have disturbed the original enclosing elements, the kind of gradual, often unintentional damage that comes from generations of agricultural activity. A causewayed entrance, about 4.4 metres wide, breaks the circuit at the south-east, the original threshold through which inhabitants would have passed in and out of whatever domestic life was once conducted inside.