RATH in Lessans

Lessans in County Down still carries the name of a rath, though no wall or ditch remains visible to mark the boundary. The official record preserves only the kind and the place, leaving the shape of the site to imagination. A rath is a made place, a circle or oval drawn around life, so the land may have held a house, a yard and a reason for being defended before the grass erased the line. The absence does not diminish it. It removes the claim that the site must fit a modern picture of importance.