Ringfort (Cashel), Rocksborough, Co. Mayo

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Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Rocksborough, Co. Mayo

Sitting in rough pasture in Rocksborough, County Mayo, this stone ringfort is the kind of structure that rewards anyone who looks carefully at a field.

A cashel, as this type of ringfort is known, is built from stone rather than earth and timber, and this one has held its shape remarkably well. The enclosing wall measures roughly forty metres across in both directions, standing around eighty centimetres high and a full one point two metres wide, with both inner and outer stone facings still clearly defined. That combination of scale and preservation is not always a given with sites of this age.

Ringforts were built predominantly during the early medieval period in Ireland, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served as enclosed farmsteads for individual families or small communities. The cashel form is particularly associated with the west of Ireland, where surface stone was plentiful enough to construct walls of genuine substance rather than earthen banks. The interior of this example is now overgrown, but a depression in the north-west corner has been identified as a possible souterrain, an underground passage or chamber, typically stone-lined, that was used for storage or as a place of refuge. The presence of a souterrain, if confirmed, would suggest a household of some means and practical ambition, since their construction required considerable effort.

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