Ringfort (Cashel), Graigue, Co. Tipperary

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Graigue, Co. Tipperary

A cashel is a ringfort defined by a stone enclosure rather than an earthen bank, and this one in Graigue, on a gentle south-easterly slope in County Tipperary, survives only just.

What remains measures roughly 40.7 metres across at its widest point, and the boundary that once formed a complete stone circuit has been reduced to a low, rubble-and-clay bank, with proper inner and outer stone facing visible only along the north-eastern stretch. That surviving section stands no more than 0.7 metres on its outer face and 0.4 metres on its inner face, wide enough to confirm that a substantial wall once ran the full perimeter.

The most telling detail about the site comes not from the archaeology itself but from local memory. A neighbouring landowner recalls the enclosure in a considerably more intact state, with a continuous stone wall forming the full enclosing element. Since that time, the north-western quadrant has been largely destroyed and a rubble stone wall built across the same sector, slightly cutting through where the original structure once stood. A gap of around 3.2 metres has also opened in the eastern side. These losses are modest in one sense but significant in another: once a dry-stone enclosure like this begins to be quarried for field walls or simply allowed to collapse, the dressed facing stones are usually the first to disappear, leaving only the loose interior rubble to hint at what stood there. That progression is visible here in miniature, the north-east being the last place where the original construction technique can still be read clearly.

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