Ringfort (Cashel), Derrycashel, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Ringforts
A roughly circular enclosure sits at the western end of a ridge in Derrycashel, County Mayo, its ancient drystone wall so thoroughly absorbed into a later network of field boundaries that the two systems are now almost indistinguishable.
This is a cashel, the stone-built equivalent of the more familiar earthen ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead used widely in early medieval Ireland. What makes this one quietly interesting is how much of its original anatomy survives beneath the accumulated interference of later farming, and how clearly its builders chose the spot with defence and visibility in mind.
The enclosure measures just over 32 metres across, and its wall tells a different story on each side. Along the north-eastern to southern arc, four to seven courses of horizontally laid slabs remain standing, with larger stones forming the basal course; on this side the wall appears to face onto a natural scarp, its top level with the interior ground rather than rising above it. The south-western to western stretch has been reduced in places to a single basal row of large boulders and slabs. On the western to northern side, drystone walling of small and medium stones sits on a low earthen bank, with a sod-covered stony lip surviving on the interior face. A gap roughly 1.4 metres wide on the eastern side is likely the original entrance, flanked by large stones and leading inward to a slight linear depression in the ground, suggesting a worn or deliberately formed approach. A large boulder near the north-west of the interior sits ground-fast, with a substantial slab leaning against it, its base resting in a shallow hollow. Later property walls cut across the interior in two directions, dividing it awkwardly, and the eastern half is partly obscured by hawthorn and bramble growth. Local tradition holds that a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage often used for storage or refuge, lies somewhere in this more disturbed eastern portion of the enclosure.