Ringfort (Cashel), Fostragh, Co. Roscommon
Co. Roscommon |
Ringforts
On a drumlin slope in Fostragh, County Roscommon, there is a ringfort with no discernible way in.
No gap in the stonework, no worn threshold, no obvious point of entry has survived, which gives the enclosure an oddly self-contained quality, as though it were built to be contemplated rather than entered.
A cashel is the stone-built equivalent of the more familiar earthen ringfort, a roughly circular enclosure typically dating from the early medieval period and associated with farmstead settlement. This particular example sits near the crest of a south-west-facing drumlin slope, a low elongated hill shaped by glacial action, and its layout is more complex than a casual glance might suggest. The interior is a grass-covered circle roughly 23 metres across, defined by a low spread of stone running from west through north to east. Beyond that inner ring lies a berm, a flat ledge of ground between two walls, around one and a half to three metres wide, and beyond that an outer stone spread, now visible only in interrupted sections. Where the outer stonework has disappeared, the line of the enclosure is traced instead by scarps, slight drops in ground level, both inward-facing and outward-facing, that together complete a circuit reaching about 33 metres at its widest. The whole structure sits quietly in the field, its maximum height at any point no more than a few tens of centimetres above the surrounding ground.