Ringfort (Rath), Ballyglass, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Ballyglass, Co. Mayo

On a low hillock in County Mayo, a ringfort and the landscape have gradually become one.

The site sits on the summit of what the 1915 Ordnance Survey six-inch map names Cruckavilla, and its position was clearly chosen with purpose: the hillock commands extensive views in every direction, offering the kind of sightlines that would have mattered enormously to whoever enclosed this ground, probably somewhere in the early medieval period. A rath, as this type of monument is formally known, is a roughly circular earthwork enclosure, built of raised banks or scarps rather than stone walls, and typically associated with a farmstead of some status. Here the enclosing scarp still stands to around 1.35 metres on the south-western arc, with a narrow berm or terrace running outside it, but much of the rest has been softened or lost entirely.

The ringfort measures roughly 37.5 metres east to west and 30.7 metres north to south, enclosing a gently undulating interior. On the north-west to east side, the rath scarp blends so smoothly into the natural slope of the hillock that the boundary between human construction and glacial landform is no longer legible. More damaging still, the eastern to southern flank of the hillock has been quarried away, obliterating that section of the scarp altogether. At the south-east, however, the scarp and its outer berm curve outward into what looks like a ramp, and this has been interpreted as the probable location of the original entrance. Inside the enclosure, a slightly raised and relatively level area in the north-west quadrant contains a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, a feature common to early medieval ringforts and used variously for storage, refuge, or drainage. Cultivation ridges running on a roughly north-north-west to south-south-east axis cross both the rath interior and the sides of the hillock itself, evidence of later agricultural use that has further altered the site's profile over the centuries.

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