Ringfort (Cashel), An Rinnín, Co. Kerry

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), An Rinnín, Co. Kerry

On the lower north-eastern spur of Knockstooka, above the curve of Ballinskelligs Bay, sits a site that does not appear on Ordnance Survey maps at all.

What remains here is a caher, a type of stone-walled ringfort characteristic of early medieval Ireland, though in a heavily disturbed state. Field walls cut straight through it, a relatively modern stone house occupies part of its north-western corner, and the enclosing wall survives in most places only one or two courses high. Yet enough endures to suggest that this was once a carefully constructed and deliberately placed enclosure, its entrance facing east and framed at each of its four angles by small upright pillar-like slabs.

The entrance itself is one of the more legible features remaining. It is 1.2 metres wide and opens into a passage some 3 metres long, its sides built in coursed drystone masonry, a technique using carefully stacked unmortered stone that requires considerable skill to execute well. The outer face of the enclosing wall, 3 metres thick in places, was dressed with large external slabs. Just inside the wall in the northern sector, there is an opening to a souterrain, an underground stone-built passage of the kind commonly associated with early medieval settlement sites in Ireland, used variously for storage, refuge, or both. The passage runs roughly north to south, is at least 4.5 metres long, averages 1.2 metres wide, and reaches up to 1.3 metres in height. Its walls are formed from upright slabs topped with drystone courses, and the roof is made of stone lintels, one of which has collapsed into the passage. Both ends are now blocked by debris, and stone and earthen fill has accumulated throughout, leaving the full extent of the souterrain uncertain.

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