Ringfort (Cashel), Derrynavahagh, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Derrynavahagh, Co. Clare

On the western side of the Caher Valley in County Clare, a roughly circular stone enclosure sits quietly in rough pasture, its walls still largely intact after well over a thousand years of use, reuse, and gradual absorption into the working landscape around it.

This is a cashel, the Irish term for a stone-walled ringfort, built to enclose a farmstead and offer its inhabitants a degree of protection. What makes this particular example quietly compelling is not dramatic preservation but rather the visible layering of time across its fabric.

The enclosure measures roughly 21 metres north to south and 19.4 metres east to west, making it a modest but substantial structure. Its defining wall, around 1.1 metres wide and faced on both its inner and outer surfaces, still stands to between 0.4 and 1.35 metres on the interior and slightly less on the exterior. A splayed entrance, one that widens from inside to out, survives at the east-north-east, a feature designed to allow easier passage for people and animals while maintaining the structural integrity of the wall. At the western face of the enclosure, a rough vertical joint in the masonry hints at something more complex beneath the surface, possibly a blocked entrance or an earlier repair that was never smoothed away. Later field walls have been built directly onto the older cashel wall from the west and south, and further mound and slab walls extend outward in those directions, all of it sitting within what has been identified as a multiperiod field system. The site faces east on a gentle slope, with broad views opening out from south-west to north across the valley.

The cashel and its surrounding field system together form a kind of palimpsest, each generation of farming adding its own lines to a landscape that was already well organised when medieval farmers first began adapting what earlier hands had built.

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), Derrynavahagh, Co. Clare. 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