Ringfort (Cashel), Ballykinvarga, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Ballykinvarga, Co. Clare

At Ballykinvarga in County Clare, a roughly circular enclosure sits quietly in undulating pasture, its original purpose legible only to those who know what to look for.

The structure is a cashel, the Irish term for a ringfort built from stone rather than earth and timber, and what survives here is largely the ghost of a wall, grass-covered stone spill and occasional facing stones betraying where a double-faced barrier once stood.

The cashel occupies a gentle east-facing slope, orientated so that its interior would have caught the morning light. Its dimensions are modest but clear enough to measure: the interior runs roughly 20.5 metres on the northwest-to-southeast axis and just under 20 metres on the other, while the overall footprint stretches to around 25 by 24 metres. Where the original double-faced wall, essentially two parallel skins of upright stone with rubble packed between them, can still be traced at the west-northwest, it measures about 2.3 metres in width, though it stands no more than half a metre high today. The cashel sits within a larger multiperiod field system, meaning the landscape around it accumulated boundaries, enclosures, and divisions across several different eras, with the ringfort representing just one layer of a much longer agricultural and social history in this part of the Burren region.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Ringfort (Cashel), Ballykinvarga, Co. Clare. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement