Ringfort (Cashel), Addergown, Co. Kerry

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Addergown, Co. Kerry

The Ordnance Survey mapmakers who passed through this part of north Kerry in 1841 and 1842 noted something they labelled simply as "Caves" within an ancient enclosure in the townland of Addergown.

Whatever they saw, or heard locally, pointed to something underground, and the name stuck on paper even as the feature itself became harder to read on the ground.

The site is known as Caherbuckaun, an anglicisation of Cathair Bhocáin, meaning the stonefort of Bocán, a personal name that hints at a specific individual once associated with this place, though who Bocán was, and when he lived, is not recorded. A cashel is a ringfort built from stone rather than earth, and Caherbuckaun is a substantial example: a circular enclosure roughly 40.5 metres across, bounded by a well-defined stone-lined bank that still stands around two metres high on its outer face. The interior sits at a slightly elevated level relative to the surrounding land, sloping gently eastward toward a stream, with the original entrance on that same eastern side. Within the interior, a distinct sub-circular depression measures roughly 21.7 metres by 14.8 metres and is thought to represent the collapsed or infilled remains of a souterrain, an underground passage or chamber of the kind commonly associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, used variously for storage, refuge, or both. The OS mapmakers' "Caves" almost certainly refer to this feature. A second, simpler stone enclosure lies to the south-east, suggesting the area once formed part of a broader complex of occupation. The site sits quietly in the corner of a pastoral field, which is itself a common fate for these structures across Kerry, their stones still largely intact but their original purpose long overtaken by grazing land.

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