Ringfort (Rath), Parks, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Parks, Co. Mayo

On a south-facing slope in the townland of Parks, County Mayo, there is a feature in the pasture that most walkers would pass without a second glance.

A barely perceptible rise in the ground, curving faintly through the grass, is all that survives of what may once have been a ringfort, the circular earthen enclosure that served as a farmstead and place of protection for early medieval Irish families. At roughly 46 metres in diameter, it would have been a reasonably substantial example of the type, enclosed by a bank and possibly a ditch, sheltering a household within.

The most useful record of the site comes not from the ground but from paper. The Ordnance Survey map of 1838 shows a clear circular enclosure at this location, suggesting that at the time of the first systematic mapping of Ireland the structure was still legible enough to be recorded with confidence. In the nearly two centuries since, the bank has been reduced to the very slightest of traces, almost entirely absorbed by the working farmland around it. A local archaeological survey of the Ballinrobe district, compiled by D. Lavelle and published in 1994, catalogued the site while noting its ambiguity, classifying it only as possibly a ringfort rather than confirming the designation outright.

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Pete F
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