What is recorded here

Indicated is a stony oval rath on the eastern edge of Swinford, set on a ridge that looks down into low valleys while a higher ridge looms behind it. Cattle graze around it now, field fences clip its edges, and hawthorn rings the bank, yet the shape remains clear enough to suggest people once valued the view or the protection of the ridge. The quarrying and reuse of its stones hint that the fort served living neighbourhoods long after it stopped being a fortress.

In pasture, on the E outskirts of Swinford town, located on top of a ridge, overlooked to W by a higher ridge, and with good views to N–NE and S over valleys of low lying ground. Oval area (33m ENE–WSW; c. 25m NNW–SSE) defined by a stony earthen bank (Wth 2.2m; int. H 0.45m; ext. H 0.9m, at S). At N–E the bank is largely reduced to a scarp (ext. H 1.5m at NE), at E–SW it serves as a field boundary and has been faced with stone, and at W–NNW it has been quarried away leaving a steep, irregular, slightly concave slope (H 1.7m). A NNW–SSE field fence clips the W edge of the rath and at N a field fence on a roughly E–W axis skirts the scarp in a shallow arc. At NE two other field fences abut the rath. Stones protrude from the sod along the top of the bank/scarp and the inner edge of the scarp at NE is edged by three large stones. The rath interior is grass covered; hawthorn and gorse ring the perimeter. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 25 November 2020

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