Ringfort (Cashel), Lough Cutra Demesne, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Lough Cutra Demesne, Co. Galway

On a ridge within the farmland of Lough Cutra Demesne in County Galway, the outline of an early medieval cashel survives in a state of quiet collapse.

A cashel is a type of ringfort defined by a stone enclosure wall rather than an earthen bank, and this example, though reduced now to a tumble of drystone, still traces a roughly circular form across the ground. Its dimensions, approximately 34 metres east to west and 27.5 metres north to south, suggest an enclosure of reasonable size, likely built to protect a farmstead and its inhabitants during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries.

What remains is largely the footprint of a wall that has long since fallen in on itself. Two gaps are visible in the perimeter, one to the north at around 3.5 metres wide, and one to the east at about 2.3 metres, though both are considered modern breaks rather than original entranceways. The original entrance, wherever it stood, is no longer clearly identifiable. The drystone construction technique, in which stones are carefully stacked without mortar, was common across the west of Ireland, where good building stone was more readily available than in areas of deeper soil, and thousands of such enclosures once dotted the landscape.

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