Caher, Doonnawaul, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Ringforts

Caher, Doonnawaul, Co. Galway

On the highest point of Dún na bhFál Island, a small and largely forgotten island to the north-east of Slyne Head on the Connemara coast, the remains of an early stone enclosure sit exposed to whatever the Atlantic chooses to throw at them.

What survives is an oval cashel, a type of dry-stone walled enclosure associated with early medieval Ireland, measuring roughly 20.5 metres east to west and 11 metres north to south. The wall has collapsed so thoroughly that from the western to the north-eastern arc there is almost nothing left to see above ground level, and a gap on the southern side appears to be a later, probably modern, intervention rather than an original entrance.

Within the southern half of the interior, two poorly defined hut structures can be made out, and several more lie just outside the enclosure wall. This cluster of habitation traces suggests the cashel was not simply a refuge or enclosure for livestock but may have formed the nucleus of a small settled community, living at considerable remove from the mainland. References in both the 1954 and 1967 editions of the Killanin and Duignan guide to Ireland place the site in the published record, though the description is spare, as tends to be the case with monuments that have been quietly dissolving into the hillside for centuries. The island setting, the oval rather than circular form, and the scatter of associated huts combine to make this a site of quiet archaeological interest, even in its ruined state.

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