Ringfort - rath

The National Monuments Service's description

On a gentle rise beside a stream with good views and in an area of rough undulating pasture with nearby signs of earlier cultivation. Hachured and named ‘Tullagh Fort’ on the 1840 and 1916 OS 6-inch maps. Westropp (1913, 259-260) describes a rath in the townland of Tullagha ‘probably the ancient Tulach Chuirc’ with a rampart which is ‘31 feet thick’ which rises ‘6 feet over the garth’. He describes three gaps, ‘the third faces the east and was probably the ancient entrance’ and a waterlogged fosse (ibid.). A roughly circular rath (int. dims. 50m N-S; 48.5m E-W) defined by a steep-sided and flat-topped bank (Wth at base 10m; Wth at top 3m; H 3-4m) with possible entrances at E (Wth 1m) and SSE (Wth 8.5m) and a possible outer fosse visible as a flat-bottomed waterlogged depression (Wth 3.5m; D c. 1m) outside the bank from SE to N. The E and SSE entrances are stone-lined and may be original. Narrow cattle gaps occur at SW and NE. A low earthen bank orientated E-W (H 0.3m; Wth 2m) slightly E of centre divides the interior into two parts. The N section of the interior is marshy and waterlogged. Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Lynda McCormack Date of upload: 4 may 2022

References

Westropp, T.J. 1913 Prehistoric remains (forts and dolmens) in the Corofin district, Co. Clare (no. 11). Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries 43, 232-60.