Ringfort (Cashel), Gorteen, Co. Clare

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Ringfort (Cashel), Gorteen, Co. Clare

What is most striking about this cashel near Gorteen in County Clare is not what survives but what has been swallowed.

A cashel is a type of ringfort enclosed by a dry-stone wall rather than an earthen bank, and this one sits on a low rise within a small rectangular woodland plot, hemmed in by pasture on three sides and a working farmyard to the west. The enclosing stone wall has collapsed to a largely undifferentiated spread, yet its dimensions still communicate something of its original ambition: the overall width measures over eight metres, which is exceptionally broad for a structure of this kind, suggesting a wall that was once substantial in both height and mass.

The circular area it defines measures roughly 24.5 metres north to south and 24 metres east to west, placing it within the typical range for a single farmstead enclosure of the early medieval period, when cashels like this one served as the fortified homesteads of farming families across the Irish countryside. A later field wall, running north-east to south-west, has been built directly on top of the southern and south-eastern sections of the enclosing elements, a reminder of how thoroughly these monuments were absorbed into the working agricultural landscape in subsequent centuries. No original entrance is visible, largely because the interior is so densely overgrown with mature thorn trees that only a limited portion of the eastern sector can be accessed at all. Rock outcrop and loose stone are scattered throughout what little can be seen inside. To the west, round bales stacked in the adjacent farmyard press up against the monument, so that ancient masonry and modern agricultural routine occupy more or less the same space.

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