Ringfort (Cashel), Clamperpark, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
Sitting in rolling Galway grassland, this roughly circular stone enclosure measures just over thirty-nine metres across at its widest point, built not from mortar but from dry-laid stone fitted together without any binding material, a technique that has held for well over a thousand years.
A cashel is simply the Irish term for a ringfort constructed in this manner, distinguishing it from the more common earthen rath, and examples of both types once peppered the Irish countryside in their thousands, serving as enclosed farmsteads for early medieval families of varying rank and means. This one survives in fair condition, though land-clearance operations have taken their toll on the south-eastern and south-western sections of the wall, where the stone has been disturbed or robbed.
The site has attracted scholarly attention going back at least to 1919, when the antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp recorded it, and it was noted again by Cody in 1989. One of its more intriguing features is the possible presence of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber that typically served early medieval settlements as a place of refuge, storage, or both. Whether this one remains intact or accessible below ground is not definitively established, but its association with the cashel follows a well-recognised pattern across Connacht and beyond, where such passages were commonly incorporated into or situated near enclosures of this kind.