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Moneylahan

Rath

Fieldnotes

I was driving along here on my way to look for the court tomb up the road when I spotted this. Now I like a good rath so I do, but this deserves more than the regular small red circle that marks it on OS sheet 16. Given that they are the most common Irish monument (there are probably about 300 on sheet 16 alone), you could tend to ignore them – they're everywhere. This might be a costly mistake however – places like this what I presume to be a multivallate, iron-age ringfort/cashel/rath, are well worth stopping for and are quite spectacular.
The presence of Benwiskin can't be ignored here. It rises up to a not huge height of 514 metres, but does so in rapid time – no gentle rolling hills here – you get vertigo just looking up at the sheep on the 450 metre line.
The fort is a mixture of earthen embankments and dry-stone walls, quite crude in comparison to say Staigue, but much disturbance has occurred here over time. There is a ramp-like approach on the south-west side that circles around the circular fort, visible from the road, but it was hard to make out the entrance in the short time I spent here. Inside the fort itself are many collections of rubble, but as I said I didn't give this place as much time as it deserves. Will I ever return? I'd love to.
ryaner Posted by ryaner
2nd August 2011ce

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