Ringfort (Cashel), Drumbulcaun, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Drumbulcaun, Co. Galway

In the pastureland of Drumbulcaun, in County Galway, a roughly circular stone enclosure sits quietly in a field, largely unannounced and easy to miss from the road.

It is a cashel, a type of ringfort built from dry-stone walling rather than earthen banks, and this particular example measures approximately 43 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and around 40 metres northwest to southeast, making it a substantial structure by any measure. Ringforts of this kind were typically constructed during the early medieval period in Ireland, functioning as enclosed farmsteads that offered protection for a family, their livestock, and their stores. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation, though many have been lost to agriculture or development over the centuries.

What is quietly interesting about this cashel is the manner of its formal identification. It was not recorded during a ground survey or stumbled upon by a local historian with a notebook. Jean-Charles Caillère spotted and reported it after examining satellite imagery, a reminder that aerial and digital tools continue to bring previously unrecorded sites into the archaeological register. The roughly subcircular outline of the enclosure is clearly legible from above, its stone walls tracing a shape that has survived in this Galway pasture for well over a thousand years, visible to anyone who knows what to look for on a satellite map even if it draws little attention at ground level.

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Pete F
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