Ringfort (Cashel), Currahchase, Co. Limerick

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Currahchase, Co. Limerick

A stone enclosure sits quietly on a wooded ridge in Currahchase, Co. Limerick, its circular bank largely intact after more than a thousand years.

What makes it worth pausing over is not its size but its condition: on one arc, the inner face of the wall rises in a near-vertical line, preserving something close to its original profile, while the opposite side has partially collapsed, leaving loose stone scattered inward across the floor of the enclosure. The contrast between these two sections, one composed and upright, the other spilling apart, gives the structure an almost mid-process quality, as though you have caught it in slow motion.

This is a cashel, the term used for a ringfort built from stone rather than earth and timber. Ringforts were the standard form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and offering a degree of protection for livestock and family. The cashel form is more common in rocky, western landscapes where stone was easier to come by than suitable sod. This particular example measures roughly 23.8 metres north to south and 23.4 metres east to west, making it a modest but well-proportioned enclosure. The bank stands to an internal height of about 1.35 metres and an external height of around 1.2 metres. The site was recorded by Denis Power and uploaded to the national record in August 2011.

The cashel sits within deciduous forestry, and mature trees now grow inside the enclosure itself, their roots working slowly through the stonework. The ridge setting means the ground can be uneven underfoot, and the woodland makes the structure harder to read from a distance than an open-field example would be. The best-preserved section runs roughly from north-north-east to south-south-east, and that is where the near-vertical inner face is most legible. Visiting outside the full leaf season gives a clearer view of the bank's outline and makes it easier to trace the full circuit of the enclosure through the trees.

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Pete F
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