Ringfort (Cashel), Cornagee, Co. Cavan

Co. Cavan |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Cornagee, Co. Cavan

In a field in Cornagee, County Cavan, a low oval rise in the land is all that remains of a cashel, a type of ringfort built from drystone walling rather than the more familiar earthen bank.

Where a typical ringfort relied on ditches and ramparts of soil, a cashel used dry-laid stone, mortarless and carefully stacked, to enclose a farmstead and its inhabitants. This one has largely fallen into itself, its narrow wall reduced to a ragged collapse, and the original entrance has been lost entirely beneath the slow work of vegetation and time.

What makes this site particularly elusive is its absence from the Ordnance Survey maps of both 1836 and 1876. By those decades, Irish cartographers were systematically recording antiquities across the country, and the omission suggests the cashel was either too obscured or too little-known to register with surveyors passing through. The enclosure itself is a raised oval measuring roughly 33 metres on its longer northeast to southwest axis and around 23 metres across, dimensions that would once have encompassed a small agricultural settlement, most likely of early medieval date. Ringforts of this kind were the standard unit of rural life in Ireland between roughly the sixth and twelfth centuries, each one the fortified homestead of a farming family.

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), Cornagee, Co. Cavan. 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