Ringfort (Cashel), Cloghalahard, Co. Galway

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Ringfort (Cashel), Cloghalahard, Co. Galway

There is a ringfort in Cloghalahard, County Galway, that you cannot see.

Somewhere beneath the undulating grassland lies a circular enclosure roughly thirty metres across, the remains of what was once a cashel, a type of ringfort defined by a stone rather than earthen boundary wall. It appeared clearly enough on the Ordnance Survey's six-inch map of 1838, drawn as a neat circular form, but at some point between that survey and the present day it slipped below the surface, leaving no visible trace in the field above it.

The 1838 mapping gives a firm terminus ante quem, meaning the enclosure was already a recognisable feature when the first systematic cartographic survey of Ireland was underway. A reference from 1912, attributed to Redington, also places the site in the documentary record, suggesting it attracted at least some local or antiquarian attention in the early twentieth century. What complicates the silence of the ground here is the presence of a souterrain immediately to the east of the cashel's recorded position. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage, typically associated with early medieval settlement, often used for storage or refuge, and usually found in close proximity to a ringfort. Its survival as a discrete recorded feature suggests the broader site retains archaeological significance even where the surface gives nothing away.

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Pete F
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