TreeAlive
‹ Sites and Monuments Record, Ireland

Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ringfort - rath

Griffinstown, County Westmeath, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Ringfort - rath, Griffinstown, County Westmeath, 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
Griffinstown
County
Westmeath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Hachured
Latest-edition OS map
Hachured
Coordinates
53.46879, -7.13783
SMR number
WM027-064----

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 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Get directions ↗

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

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on ESE-facing slope, near the top of a prominent hill, in pasture, with extensive views to NNW, N, E, S and SW. Depicted on the 1837 OS Fair Plan map and on the revised 1913 ed. OS 25-inch map as a C-shaped earthwork which is open to E, probably due to old quarrying. Monument described in 1971 as a large roughly oval-shaped area (dims. 46m N-S; 30m E-W) enclosed by a bank which is very high on the exterior and is almost reduced to a scarp. The perimeter and a large portion of the E sector has been defaced by quarrying from NE-E-SE and in several other places by livestock. There is no visible trace of an external fosse and the original entrance is not recognisable. The interior has a general ESE-facing slope. Monument is visible as a C-shaped earthwork on oblique aerial photography (CUCAP AOY055) taken 12/07/1966. Monument is visible today as a roughly oval-shaped tree-lined earthwork, disturbed across the E sector, on Digital Globe aerial photography.

See attached profile of monument surveyed and drawn by the ASI.

Compiled by Alison McQueen, Vera Rahilly and Caimin O’Brien.

Date of upload: 06 November 2019

References

CUCAP - Cambridge University Collection of Aerial Photographs. Unit for Landscape Modelling, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. See:https://www.cambridgeairphotos.com

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 Westmeath All County Westmeath records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
See your own family's places on a living map