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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ringfort - rath

Maghera (Rath ED), County Clare, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Ringfort - rath, Maghera, County Clare, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Maghera (Rath ED)
County
Clare
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Cahergal (1916)
Coordinates
52.93723, -9.12619
SMR number
CL016-115----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1753 map "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1753 · Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

On a flat level summit near the top of a steep SSE-facing slope in an area of hilly fertile grassland with undrained lower slopes. Hachured and named ‘Cahergal’ on the 1916 OS 6-inch map. Listed as ‘cashel’ in the RMP (1996). Described by Westropp (1905, 211) as ‘levelled almost to the field’ and in 1913 (p. 260) ‘as a barely visible ring of filling on a pleasant hillock on the flank of Inchiquin Hill, overlooking the green valley towards Applevale’.
A subcircular rath (dims. 22.1m N-S; 19.75m E-W) defined by a scarp (H 1m) along the S and W and a rounded earthen bank (Wth 1.9m; int. H 0.35m; ext. H 0.15m) in the N. The centre is level and overgrown with nettles and thistles and there are multiple gaps for cattle. In the E, an earthen bank (Wth 1.5m; H 0.2m) runs along the perimeter of the central area and may be the remains of a land commission field boundary.

Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Lynda McCormack

Date of upload: 19 July 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.

Westropp, T. J. 1905 Prehistoric remains (Forts and Dolmens) along the borders of Burren, in the county of Clare. Part 1 – The Eastern Border. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. 35, 205-29.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Ringfort - rath in Clare All County Clare records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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