Ringfort (Rath), Graigueachullaire, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Graigueachullaire, Co. Galway

On an east-facing slope in the undulating grassland of Graigueachullaire, a low ring of earthworks has acquired a rather grander local reputation than its modest dimensions might suggest.

Neighbours have long called it the Hill Fort, a name recorded as far back as 1914, though the structure is technically a rath, the more common Irish ringfort type, built not for large-scale military defence but most likely as an enclosed farmstead, the kind of settlement that once dotted the Irish countryside in its thousands during the early medieval period.

The site is a circular enclosure about 46 metres in diameter, defined by two earthen banks with a fosse, or ditch, running between them. The inner bank survives along the eastern, southern, and northern stretches; where it has worn away, a natural or partly artificial scarp takes over the work of defining the boundary. The outer bank has been partly absorbed into a later field boundary, which runs from the east-northeast around through south to north-northwest, the kind of gradual overwriting that happens when farmland is managed across generations without much regard for what lies beneath. Inside the enclosure, a circular structure of stone, now grassed over and measuring around 4.8 metres across, may represent the footprint of a house, the domestic heart of whatever household once claimed this rise as its own.

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Pete F
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