Cashelgal Fort, Ranagissaun, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Ringforts

Cashelgal Fort, Ranagissaun, Co. Mayo

A low hillock in rough County Mayo pasture holds the remains of what was once a cashel, a type of early medieval enclosure defined by a drystone circular wall, and the site has changed surprisingly little in its basic outline since it was mapped by the Ordnance Survey in 1838.

What the map could not show is how thoroughly the structure has been absorbed back into the land. The enclosing wall, roughly three metres wide and once substantial enough to require large stone blocks at its base, now barely rises above the ground. The external face retains two or three courses to a maximum height of about 0.8 metres; the internal face has virtually disappeared, collapsed or robbed for other building work until it is little more than a sod-covered spread of loose stone, nearly flush with the interior.

The cashel is roughly circular, measuring around 31 metres north-east to south-west and 32 metres in the perpendicular direction. Outside the wall, on the south-south-west to north-west arc, there is a berm-like stony embankment or scarp up to 3.5 metres wide, which adds a further layer of enclosure to the site. A small semi-circular quarry cut, about two metres across, has been taken out of this scarp at the south-west, suggesting the stone was put to use locally at some point. A later field wall, running on a north-east to south-west axis, cuts across the eastern and south-eastern edge of the cashel and overlies the inner wall face, making it difficult now to read the original plan cleanly. The probable entrance, a gap of around two metres, sits at the east-north-east but is partly obscured by that same later wall. A separate ringfort, a related but distinct form of enclosed settlement, lies approximately 300 metres to the north-east, hinting that this corner of Ranagissaun was once a more densely occupied landscape than it appears today.

The eastern half of the interior is now largely taken over by blackthorn scrub, and hazel grows around the perimeter, so the site reads more as a thicket on a slight rise than as any kind of formal enclosure. A road skirts the north-western edge of the hillock, making the cashel reasonably accessible to anyone who knows to look for it, though the vegetation means close inspection requires some patience.

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Pete F
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