Enclosure, Ballyclancahill, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Enclosures
At the base of a natural slope in Ballyclancahill, County Clare, a scatter of collapsed stonework traces an arc around an early medieval cashel in a way that archaeologists have not yet fully explained.
A cashel is a stone-walled enclosure, typically circular, built during the early medieval period to define and defend a farmstead or the residence of a person of local standing. What makes this particular site quietly puzzling is the presence of a concentric stone spread, roughly two metres wide, running from the east-northeast to the south-southwest at a distance of about ten metres from the cashel wall itself. Radial walls once extended inward from this spread toward the cashel, and a single drystone section on the southern side remains upright while the rest has tumbled flat.
The precise relationship between the outer stone spread and the cashel it curves around is uncertain. It may represent the remains of a concentric enclosure, an outer ring added to expand or further define the settled space around the main cashel, though the collapsed state of the walls makes that interpretation difficult to confirm. What adds further interest is the proximity of a second ringfort-cashel located approximately sixty metres to the north-northwest, suggesting that this corner of Ballyclancahill was once a place of some local significance, with multiple enclosed settlements occupying the same gentle landscape within close sight of one another.