Ringfort (Cashel), Meggagh, Co. Clare

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Meggagh, Co. Clare

On a west-facing slope in County Clare, a roughly rectangular ring of earth and stone sits quietly in rough pasture, easy to overlook and easier still to misread.

This is a cashel, a type of early medieval ringfort built from stone rather than earthen banks, and the one at Meggagh has been worn down considerably by time and grazing. What remains is a wide, grass-covered stony bank, between 3.5 and 6.7 metres across, enclosing an interior space of roughly 11.8 by 11.3 metres. At certain points along its southern edge, two upright slabs may represent the last traces of an inner wall facing, hinting at the more structured stone construction that once defined the enclosure.

The cashel is subrectangular in plan, which places it slightly outside the more familiar circular form associated with ringforts. Its outer dimensions run to approximately 21 metres north to south and 18 metres east to west, and occasional facing stones still protrude from the outer wall at heights of between 0.25 and 0.45 metres. The bank itself rises to around a metre on the interior side. What makes the Meggagh site particularly interesting is its context within a small cluster of early medieval features. Roughly 31 metres to the south lies a hut site, and about 68 metres to the southwest there is a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber typically associated with nearby settlement, used variously for storage or refuge. Together, these three monuments suggest a small but organised habitation on this terraced hillside, the cashel serving as the focal enclosure for what was once a working early medieval farmstead.

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Pete F
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