Ringfort (Cashel), Newtown, Co. Galway

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Newtown, Co. Galway

On a south-west-facing slope in the pastureland of Newtown, Co. Galway, a roughly circular arrangement of collapsed stone marks the outline of an early medieval cashel.

A cashel is a ringfort built from drystone walling rather than earthen banks, and this particular example has not fared well against the centuries. The wall has been badly defaced and lies largely in ruin, though its basic form can still be traced around the full circuit of the enclosure.

The monument measures approximately 32.5 metres north to south. Where the southern sector survives in the most readable condition, the wall was recorded at around 2.75 metres wide, with an interior height of just 0.55 metres and an exterior height of 0.35 metres, suggesting that much of the original structure has slumped or been robbed out over time. That the surveyors could still distinguish inner and outer wall-facing in the south sector is telling; it indicates that the wall was once a substantial double-faced construction with a rubble core between, a typical technique for cashels of early medieval Ireland, when such enclosures served as farmsteads or the defended residences of local landowners. At the north-east, a field boundary cuts across the monument, a common fate for these sites once their original function was forgotten and the land divided up for agriculture.

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