Ringfort, Knockogonnell, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
There is a ringfort at Knockogonnell in County Galway that no longer exists in any visible sense.
The ground shows nothing: no bank, no ditch, no faint suggestion of a curve in the soil. Whatever once stood here has been entirely absorbed into the surrounding pastureland on a south-westerly facing slope, leaving behind only a cartographic ghost.
Ringforts, which were enclosed farmsteads typically dating from the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, were once among the most common features of the Irish countryside. Thousands survive in varying states of preservation. This one at Knockogonnell was recorded on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map as a roughly circular enclosure approximately forty metres in diameter, which is a fairly typical size for a single-family agricultural settlement. At some point between that survey and the present day, the physical structure was lost, most likely to agricultural clearance, though no specific account of its removal appears to survive.