Ringfort (Cashel), Clogharevaun, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Clogharevaun, Co. Galway

On a ridge top in the rolling pastureland of Clogharevaun, a roughly circular enclosure sits in a state of quiet collapse, its outline still readable in the landscape if you know what to look for.

This is a cashel, a type of ringfort built not from an earthen bank but from drystone walling, the same dry-laid technique used in the field boundaries that still criss-cross this part of Connacht. The irony here is plain enough: a later field wall has been built directly through the southern side of the enclosure, the modern agricultural landscape literally cutting across the ancient one.

The cashel measures approximately 23.6 metres east to west and 20 metres north to south, giving it a subcircular footprint of modest but not insignificant size. The drystone wall that once defined it has largely collapsed, and the best-preserved stretch runs from the north-west around to the north. Cashels of this kind are generally associated with the early medieval period in Ireland, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, and would typically have enclosed a farmstead or small settlement. The Galway Archaeological Survey, conducted in association with University College Galway, recorded the site in its current condition, documenting what remains of the enclosing element amid the surrounding pasture.

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Pete F
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