Ringfort (Rath), Hazelfort, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Hazelfort, Co. Galway

What draws the eye at Hazelfort is not one enclosure but several, a cluster of earthworks occupying the southern end of a low ridge in undulating grassland that quietly complicates the idea of a simple farmstead.

The main ringfort, a subcircular rath roughly 36 metres north to south and 33 metres east to west, sits in fair condition, its perimeter defined by two earthen banks with an intervening fosse, the ditch that would once have reinforced the barrier between the enclosed space and the world outside. A rath of this kind was typically an early medieval farmstead, home to a single family of some local standing, its banks serving as much as a social statement as a defensive one. Around thirty metres to the east lies a small oval enclosure formed by an earthen bank, and to the west a short boulder-lined stretch of road, around twelve metres long and six wide, survives as a grassed-over ghost of movement through the landscape. These are thought to be later additions rather than original features.

The interior holds the more intimate details. A probable souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber used for storage or concealment, lies beneath the surface, and beside it the faint outline of a small subcircular structure, about 2.6 metres by 1.8 metres, defined by a low stony bank with what appears to be an entrance on the eastern side. This is interpreted as a house, modest even by early medieval standards, its doorway facing the rising sun in the manner common to domestic structures of the period. The outer bank and fosse have fared less well on the south-eastern to south-western arc, disturbed at some point by quarrying that has eaten into the earthworks and left only three low berms where a continuous bank once ran.

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Pete F
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