While this book is undoubtedly a major contribution, it is not without its shortcomings. It is a pity that it does not begin with a general discussion of Early Christian settlement and society which, curiously, has been put at the end. With the contextual background, the nature of ringforts and their place in society can be more readily understood. Almost half the book is devoted to the distribution of ringforts, and while the maps are excellent the overall position is not presented in the text as clearly as it might be. There are, however, detailed discussions of regional distributions, within the author s framework of fourteen zones.
Good use is made here of local studies.
Stout does not hide the difficulties of interpretation posed by these maps. Additionally there is the question of how many ringforts were occupied at the same time. This book examines the ringfort, the commonest field monument in Ireland, as a way of understanding how all classes of secular society lived in the early medieval period. The approach used is essentially geographical and statistical and draws upon the steadily increasing amount of data gathered in sites and monuments records and from air photographs. Over the last 20 years or so scientific dating techniques have, of course, confirmed the view that ringforts and crannogs are early medieval and Dr Stout includes useful tables of sites, many unpublished, with dendrochronological and radiocarbon dates.