Ringfort (Cashel), Cummer, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Cummer, Co. Galway

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.

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Pete F
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