Ringfort (Cashel), Poulanine, Co. Clare

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Poulanine, Co. Clare

Most ringforts in Ireland are circular, so the one at Poulanine already stands apart before you have looked closely at anything else.

This cashel, a type of ringfort defined by a stone enclosure wall rather than an earthen bank, is almost perfectly square, measuring roughly 32 metres on each side. It sits on a limestone plateau with only a thin covering of grass, and a ravine drops away approximately 50 metres to the west. The outer face of the enclosing wall, built from large horizontally laid stones, can still be traced nearly all the way around, though collapse and stone spill have spread the total width to between two and three metres in places.

What makes the site more layered than a simple enclosure is the evidence of activity across different periods. At the north-east, two upright stones define a possible entrance gap about 1.5 metres wide, though a later drystone wall has been built directly over this section of the cashel wall, partly obscuring it. At the south-west, the original wall was rebuilt as a double-faced construction, standing up to 2.5 metres high externally. Inside the enclosure, the remains of a house occupy the central area. Built into two of the internal corners are later cells of noticeably different character: the one in the northern corner is a modest double-faced stone structure, while the cell in the southern corner is considerably larger, roughly 7 metres by 6 metres, and has a curvilinear wall in which the stones are laid transversely rather than horizontally, a technique that hints at a different hand or a different period entirely. The cashel also sits within a multiperiod field system, suggesting that the landscape around it was being organised and reorganised over a very long stretch of time.

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