Fort, Cashelaveela, Co. Leitrim
Co. Leitrim |
Ringforts
On the lower slopes of Dough Mountain, above the northern edge of the Glenfarne valley, a broad circular enclosure sits on a south-facing rise without any obvious sign of what it once was.
The grass and reeds have largely taken over, the enclosing bank has settled into a low ridge of earth and stone, and there is no surviving ditch, no clear entrance, and no obvious break in the perimeter to suggest how people once moved in or out of it.
The enclosure measures roughly 39.5 metres east to west and 37 metres north to south internally, making it a substantial ring. Its bank, about 4.8 metres wide, stands only around 0.25 metres above the interior ground level, though it rises somewhat higher on the outer face, to about 0.7 metres. This kind of earthwork belongs to a broad class of circular enclosures found across Ireland, commonly called raths or ringforts, which were typically used as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. A rath of this general type, in Irish tradition, usually incorporated a fosse, a surrounding ditch cut to provide the material for the bank, but here no such ditch is visible. The lack of an identifiable entrance adds to the sense of a structure that has worn itself quietly into the hillside over many centuries. A later field boundary, running roughly north to south, has been built across the western side of the enclosure, cutting through the perimeter bank and layering a more recent agricultural landscape over an older one. Another related enclosure of the same type lies approximately 200 metres to the northwest, suggesting this part of the Glenfarne valley once supported a small cluster of enclosed settlements.