Ringfort (Cashel), Cummer, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Ringforts
In a field near Cummer in north Galway, a section of collapsed drystone walling curves through the grass, its arc just legible enough to suggest the outline of something much older.
What survives is a cashel, the Irish term for a stone-walled ringfort, a type of enclosed settlement used predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Most cashels once comprised a roughly circular drystone enclosure protecting a farmstead and its inhabitants. This one has not fared well against time.
The structure is subcircular in plan, measuring approximately 36 metres on its north-south axis. The original drystone wall has collapsed and, at some point, a later field boundary was built directly on top of it, running from the north-northeast through the east and curving around to the south-southwest. That practical act of reuse, a farmer finding a convenient line of rubble and incorporating it into a working landscape, effectively sealed the archaeological remains beneath while simultaneously obscuring them. Beyond that arc of wall and overgrown stone, no surface trace of the cashel survives.