Ringfort (Rath), Ballycullane, Co. Limerick

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Ballycullane, Co. Limerick

Two ringforts probably once formed a single joined enclosure in a marshy field on a north-facing slope in Ballycullane, Co. Limerick, yet most visitors to the area would walk straight past without noticing either one.

The more visible of the pair, catalogued separately just to the west, sits beyond a north-south field boundary that physically cuts through this one, slicing off its south-western to north-western arc. What remains is less a monument than a memory of one.

A ringfort, or rath, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches and used as a defended homestead from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. This particular example was recorded on the 1923 Ordnance Survey six-inch map as an embanked circular enclosure of approximately twenty metres in diameter, but by the time Denis Power compiled the archaeological record, uploaded in August 2011, the structure had been levelled. Even so, traces survive. A slight scarped edge, around a quarter of a metre high and three metres wide, is discernible running from the north-west to the south-west. Outside it lies a fosse, the ditch that would once have reinforced the enclosing bank, still nearly a metre deep and roughly five metres across. A low counterscarp bank, the outer lip of that ditch, can also be detected along the north-west to north-east arc and again from east to south-east.

The site sits in marshy ground, which makes the going soft underfoot, particularly in the wetter months. The north-facing slope means the terrain holds moisture, and the surrounding agricultural setting gives little shelter. Because the monument has been substantially levelled and then further truncated by a modern field boundary, what you are reading on the ground requires patience and a low angle of light; early morning or late afternoon in autumn or winter, when shadows are long and vegetation is thin, will make the scarped edges and the fosse far easier to pick out. The adjacent ringfort to the west, reference LI017-029, is worth examining alongside this one; the two were most likely associated, possibly contemporary, and together they suggest a small cluster of settlement in a spot that now shows little trace of its past use.

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Pete F
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