Ringfort (Cashel), Fertiana, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Ringforts
A cashel is a ringfort built from stone rather than earth and timber, and the one at Fertiana in County Tipperary is an unusually shaped example of the type.
Most ringforts tend toward the circular, but this one is almost D-shaped, its south-western side running in an oddly straight line, with an ancient trackway still visible running parallel to it. That geometric quirk, combined with its position on a gentle south-eastern slope above the flood-plain of the River Suir, gives the site an atmosphere that is quietly difficult to account for.
The enclosure measures roughly 36 metres across at its widest and is defined by a stone wall approximately 1.4 metres thick, though much of it has collapsed over the centuries. In the south-eastern quadrant, a more elaborate defensive arrangement survives: an outer wall and a fosse, the fosse being a type of defensive ditch, together forming a doubled boundary on that side. The entrance, also at the south-east and just over four metres wide, retains almost continuous stone-facing along its passage, a detail that hints at the care originally invested in the structure. Where the main wall has been reduced, the underlying construction method is still legible, with stone revetment on both faces and rubble fill packed between them. To the north, the outer wall has been reduced entirely to a line of large boulders, their linear arrangement the only clue to what once stood there. Rock outcrops push up through the ground in the interior, and the whole area within the walls is now heavily overgrown with scrub, which makes reading the full plan of the site a matter of patient observation rather than a quick glance.




