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The Rath at Coleraine is a ringfort dating to the early Christian period. This earthwork monument consists of a circular or oval enclosure defined by a bank and ditch, a common settlement form across Ireland from around the 5th to 12th centuries. Raths served as fortified homesteads for farming communities and their livestock, with the defensive earthworks providing protection and marking territorial ownership. The monument sits on bedrock of Palaeogene mafic lava and tuff, part of the extensive volcanic geology underlying this region of County Londonderry.
The Rath's location near Coleraine places it within an area rich in early Christian settlement activity, where such ringforts clustered in productive agricultural landscapes. The underlying Palaeogene volcanic bedrock has weathered to form fertile soils attractive to medieval farmers, and would have determined the character of available stone for any structures within the enclosure.
The monument is protected as a statutory monument under Historic Environment Division reference 12357, recognising its significance as evidence of early Christian rural settlement patterns in Ireland. The ringfort's survival and preservation enables understanding of how farming communities organised their settlements and defended their resources during the early medieval period.
Rath is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 12357. View the official record →
The Rath at Coleraine is a ringfort dating to the early Christian period. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 12357.
Rath dates from the e.christ. period, and is classified as a rath. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Rath is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Ni. The official designation reference is 12357.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Rath (0.1 km), Lismore. rath (0.8 km), Dwarf's grave, slaght averty. cairn (1.2 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Rath's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Rath stands on Unnamed Extrusive Rocks, Palaeogene, bedrock that formed in the Paleogene. The rock here is mafic lava and mafic tuff.