Ringfort (Cashel), Gortmaloon, Co. Kerry

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Gortmaloon, Co. Kerry

Just north of the Caraghbeg river in County Kerry, on a low rise that looks out across the Caragh river valley, a ruined stone enclosure sits quietly in a modern field.

Known locally as Comety Fort, and possibly corresponding to the place name Ceann Mhaighe, it is a caher, a type of ringfort built from stone rather than earth and timber, and its interior measures roughly 23 by 21 metres. Most of the enclosing wall has long since collapsed and spread, leaving a band of rubble averaging about 80 centimetres high and 1.6 metres wide. At the south-west corner the wall barely clears the ground at all, surviving to just 20 centimetres. A modern field boundary cuts across the north-west sector, further obscuring what the original circuit would have looked like.

What lifts this site beyond a fairly typical ruined caher is what lies beneath it. In the western quadrant of the interior, there is an opening measuring 1.3 by 1.1 metres leading down into a souterrain, an underground passage of drystone construction, meaning the walls and roof were built from carefully stacked uncemented stone. Souterrains are found widely across early medieval Ireland and are thought to have served as places of refuge, cool storage, or both. A second opening exists at the base of the outer wall on the western side. The passage appears to run in a north-east to south-west direction, though it is currently inaccessible, so its full extent remains unknown. The combination of the elevated position overlooking the valley, the stone enclosure, and the hidden passage beneath suggests a settlement of some consequence, though who lived here and when remains unrecorded.

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Pete F
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