Ringfort (Cashel), Ardaneer, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Ringforts
A cashel is a ringfort built from stone rather than earth, and this one in Ardaneer sits quietly in the Limerick countryside without anything so obvious as a visible entrance.
That absence is one of its more curious qualities. Ringforts of any kind are common enough across Ireland, but a structure that offers no clear point of entry prompts a small, nagging question about how it was ever meant to be used.
The site was recorded by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011. It occupies a flat rocky terrace in an area characterised by frequent limestone outcrops, the land cut through by gullies in the way typical of this part of the Irish midlands where carboniferous limestone sits close to the surface. The enclosure is roughly circular, measuring approximately 28 metres north to south and 25 metres east to west, and is defined by a collapsed drystone wall that still stands around 0.85 metres high in places, with a width of roughly 4 metres. That width suggests the wall was once a substantial feature, even if time and agricultural use have brought it low. The outer edge of the enclosing wall has been cut away along a southeast to southwest arc by a later east to west field boundary, the kind of incremental damage that accumulates across centuries of ordinary farming.
The interior is level and grassed over, with some limestone breaking the surface on the eastern side. Because the structure sits in working pasture, access will depend on the landowner's goodwill, and the usual courtesies apply. The collapsed state of the wall means the boundary of the enclosure is easier to read from a slight distance than from within it, where the ground feels almost unremarkably flat. The field boundary that has clipped the southern arc is worth noting once you have oriented yourself; it is a useful illustration of how much of what survives of early medieval settlement in Ireland has been quietly edited by later land use, a line drawn through history without any particular intention.