What is recorded here

Rathfran holds a forgotten earthen ring on a steep terrace above the Palmerstown River, its low stony bank barely rising six inches before disappearing into rough pasture. The site resists memory, absent from every official map, yet a faint internal wall and possible house remain buried beneath sod and stone. Perhaps people lived there before the land was measured, building a home so small and ordinary that history swallowed it whole.

In rough pasture, located on a terrace on a SE-facing slope overlooking mouth of Palmerstown River. Immediately to NW the ground rises steeply. There is a farmyard immediately to SE. This ringfort is not shown on any edition of the OS 6-inch maps. It consists of a slightly raised circular area (26.7m NW-SE; 25.7m NE-SW) defined by a low, sod-covered stony bank (Wth 3.9m at S; int. H 0.2m; ext. H 0.6m). The bank is particularly low and degraded at N (Wth 3.3m; int. H 0.3m; ext. H 0.1m). The interior, which slopes slightly down to S-SE, has an uneven surface, strewn with much sod-covered stone. There is a very low section of bank at E, and a break (Wth 2.7m) in the bank at N, but it is unclear if either represents an original entrance. Remnants of a stony bank (Wth 1.2m; H 0.2m), on a NW-SE axis, bisects the interior roughly centrally. In the E half of the interior there is a possible house (MA015-072002-). Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 7 December 2018

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