Ringfort (Rath), Skehanagh (Connello Lower By.), Co. Limerick

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Rath), Skehanagh (Connello Lower By.), Co. Limerick

What looks, at first glance, like a slightly uneven patch of overgrown pasture in County Limerick turns out to be the remains of a rath, an earthen ringfort of the kind that once served as a farmstead enclosure in early medieval Ireland.

Ringforts, typically circular enclosures defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, were the dominant settlement form in Ireland from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, built to protect a family's home, livestock, and perhaps a small grain store. This particular example sits in marshy ground at the base of a north-east-facing slope, pressed up against the south bank of a stream, in the townland of Skehanagh in the old barony of Connello Lower.

The enclosure measures approximately 17.5 metres across from east to west, which puts it at the smaller end of the ringfort spectrum. Its perimeter is a composite affair: an earthen bank runs from the north-north-east around to the east, still standing about 1.35 metres above the outer ground surface, while the remainder of the circuit is defined by a scarped edge, essentially a cut face of earth about 1.1 metres high and two metres wide. A fosse, the external ditch that would have reinforced the enclosure's defensive or symbolic boundary, runs from the north around to the south-south-west, measuring around 3.2 metres wide and 0.3 metres deep. A shallow drain connects the fosse to the stream to the north, a functional arrangement that would have helped manage water in this low-lying, marshy setting. The survey, compiled by Denis Power and uploaded to the archaeological record in August 2011, also notes that a field boundary visible on the 1923 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, immediately south of the enclosure, has since been removed.

Reaching this site requires a tolerance for soft ground. The marshy pasture that surrounds it means the approach is likely to be wet underfoot for much of the year, and drier late-summer conditions would give the best chance of a clear look at the earthworks. Cattle have eroded the scarp at the north-west, and the gap in the south-east is obscured by thick overgrowth. The interior, level for the most part, drops away slightly towards that south-east gap and is heavily colonised by nettles and briars, so the bank and fosse on the northern and western sides offer the clearest sense of the original form. Access would need to be arranged with the landowner, as with most such sites in agricultural use.

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