What is recorded here

Half-hidden under rushes and gorse in the damp valley of the Heathfield River, the Rathoonagh ringfort is an oval of two worn banks and a broad ditch that once held lives now lost to time. Its northern edge leans on a natural drop in the ground, as if the builders listened to the land before shaping it. Cattle still graze where people may have stood, and the sea glimmers far to the northwest, unchanged since the walls first rose.

Location on a level area with a slight drop of ground at N, in lowlying, damp, rush-grown pasture, in the valley of the Heathfield River; overlooked in the middle distance at E and W by a series of low hills, with distant views of the sea at NNW. This rath consists of a broadly oval area (47m N−S; c. 40m E−W) defined by the levelled remnants of two banks (Wth 2-3m) with a broad, flat intervening fosse (Wth 6m). It is sited to take advantage of a natural drop in ground level, which is utilised to enhance the enclosing banks at NW−N. The rath has been partly levelled in the past so that the enclosing elements are low and poorly defined, and in parts distinguished merely by differential vegetation growth. A N−S field ditch (Wth 1.5-2m at top, 1m at base; D 0.6m) cuts across the E edge of the rath, clipping the external slope of the inner bank and cutting through the fosse. Rushes cover much of the interior, and dense gorse and scrub conceal the perimeter at NE−E. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 21 June 2017

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