ringfort

ringfort, a small, roughly circular, enclosure, of between 65 and 230 feet internal diameter (averaging 130 feet), surrounded by an earthen bank with an external ditch (rath) or by a thick stone wall (cashel). A small proportion of ringforts have two or more concentric, close‐set banks and ditches, or two or more stone walls. The typical location is well‐drained, south‐facing, slightly sloping land below 200 metres altitude, although in drumlin country a ringfort might crown the top of a suitable low hillock. Excavation has shown that, with the exception of a very few ringforts that date to the later part of the Bronze Age, and some in the ‘Gaelic’ west that might have been built, or modified, during the Late Medieval period, the vast majority belong to the Early Medieval period. The Early Medieval ringfort was primarily a working farm, with an internal house and sheds, and occasionally a souterrain. Such a ringfort was probably the habitation and farmyard of a substantial farmer, a bó‐aire. Its defensive bank or wall was constructed simply as protection against cattle‐and slave‐raiding and had no military purpose. This observation is not strictly true of the minority of ringforts that are particularly strongly built, or are multivallate, or are defensively or strategically positioned. Such are likely to have been the residences of nobles or kings, and occasionally early textual evidence and excavation confirm this interpretation. It is possible that ringforts of normal appearance and location but of larger than normal diameter might have served to protect communities consisting of several families (see alsomonastic enclosures). The original number of ringforts, estimated at over 30,000, has been drastically reduced by agricultural activity.

Richard Warner