Rathtooreen

Rathtooreen is a surviving early medieval rath in Ballyscanlan, County Mayo, its western bank still rising a metre above the wet pasture while the eastern entrance opens onto the gentler knoll. The shallow ditch and levelled eastern scarp suggest farming hands absorbed the enclosure long before maps named it, yet the circular outline remains legible beneath the grass. Whoever built it likely stood at that eastern gap to watch rain move across the valley, knowing the bank would outlast the life that shaped it.