Early medieval Irish settlements (c.400AD-1,000AD) were essentially rural. By 500 AD, the advent of Christianity coupled with the growth of literacy, improved technology and farming methods, which resulted in a better diet, provided for a healthier, longer lived people. Those factors in turn resulted in a huge upsurge in population, which had profound landscape consequences. It permitted for a large workforce and the exploitation of land and labour in a unique way.

The land was divided into small units, each occupied by a tuath, which may be best translated as a tribe. Hence there were multiple scattered farmsteads and other non nucleated settlements. Farming land was prepared. Vast portions of forest were cut. Historical sources such as the life of St Columba in the late seventh century mention several agricultural processes including milking, butchering, threshing and ploughing. In particular, 45,000 enclosed farmsteads or ringforts were built over the ensuing 300 years.

The majority of the sites were built to last. They reflect people's ambitions and need for progress. It is unknown if ringforts were a native or continental invention but their popularity were widespread. A national trend was adopted by society that ringforts were a good idea to adopt.

Climate and soil had a profound effect upon the development and distribution of ringforts. Ringforts functioned primarily as farms, so suitable land was a major factor in their siting. Good views of the surrounding countryside were important and today the ruins of many ringforts can be seen from other adjacent ringforts. However, it is difficult to prove the relationship of one site to another.

The scale of these forts displayed social status. There was a hierarchy of sites. Individuals with a wide range of status were housed within ringforts. From historical sources we do know something about power and identity structures in early medieval Ireland. By the fifth century, some larger groupings had emerged and these were recognised in laws which designated different grades of kingship to match larger political units overseen by a ruaireach - a ruaireach of a tuath had an honour price of fifty or so cows.

The honour price limited a man's value at law, as a witness, an oath-taker. It naturally had political implications, limiting the role of a ruaireach in external relations. He could not have a standing army. He was neither a judge nor a law-giver. Each grade of chieftain was subdivided by status, which for most was fixed by the value of property owned, mainly land and cattle There are large and small ringforts in Lower Dripsey extending further east into the heart of Inniscarra Parish and many within view of the River Lee. They are multiple in nature. Pat Carroll of Lower Dripsey brought me to three forts in an evening of fieldwork. Their sizes were varied. Like many other ringforts, their dates of construction are unknown and their dates of abandonment remain a mystery.

Differences in hierarchy are unknown as well as changes and/ or continuities of families as residents over time. How people moved between settlements is also important. How did people relate to each other?

to be continued...

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