Ringfort (Cashel), Cahernagollum, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
In the undulating scrubland of Cahernagollum in County Mayo, a circular enclosure sits so quietly absorbed into its surroundings that it is easy to mistake for just another irregularity in the landscape.
What it actually represents is a cashel, the Irish term for a ringfort built from stone rather than earth and timber, a type of enclosed farmstead that was commonplace across Ireland during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Most were the homes of farming families of middling social rank, their walls serving less as military defences and more as boundaries marking out a household's space and keeping livestock in and wolves out.
This particular example measures roughly 48 metres north to south and 47 metres east to west, making it a reasonably substantial enclosure. The stone wall that once defined its perimeter survives in poor condition, standing no more than 0.3 metres high in places and spreading to around 2 metres in width, which suggests the original structure was considerably more imposing before centuries of weather, grazing, and possibly stone-robbing reduced it to its current state. A modern field fence has been laid directly over the old wall line, and two gates on the eastern side reflect the site's continued use as agricultural land, a fate shared by countless such monuments across the west of Ireland. The whole area is heavily overgrown, the scrubland pressing in from all sides and making the outline of the cashel difficult to read without some effort.