Ringfort (Rath), Carrowreagh, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
A modern field fence follows the curve of an ancient enclosure at Carrowreagh, bending to accommodate earthworks that are well over a thousand years old.
That small accommodation, where the practical concerns of a working farm quietly defer to something much older, is one of the more telling details about this early medieval ringfort sitting on a rise above the surrounding County Mayo countryside. The site commands views in every direction over undulating terrain, which was almost certainly the point when it was first constructed.
The rath, as this type of earthwork enclosure is properly called, is bivallate, meaning it has two lines of defence rather than the single bank and ditch more commonly encountered. The oval interior platform measures roughly 28 metres on its longest axis and 23.5 metres across, and it carries a gently domed profile, with a flattish central area of about 6 metres in diameter dropping away by approximately a metre towards the perimeter. Surrounding this raised interior is a fosse, which is a defensive ditch, between 1.7 and 2.3 metres wide depending on where you measure it. Today the fosse survives as a shallow depression that gives itself away through a distinctive line of rushes, moisture-loving plants that thrive in the low ground where the ditch once ran. Beyond that lies a low, flat-topped external bank, still legible despite centuries of weathering. The entrance survives as a 3-metre gap to the southeast, with a causeway carrying the original line of approach across the fosse. Local tradition holds that a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage typically used for storage or refuge, lies hidden somewhere within the interior, though its precise location is unconfirmed.
The perimeter of the site is fringed with rushes, gorse, brambles and hawthorn trees, giving it a slightly overgrown character that is typical of ringforts left undisturbed in permanent pasture. That same undisturbed quality is what makes it so well preserved: the earthworks retain much of their original form, and the interplay between the ancient enclosure and the working farm around it, most visibly in that fence line following the old bank, gives a clear sense of how these structures have been absorbed into the landscape rather than swept aside by it.