Ringfort (Cashel), Tullyduff, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Ringforts

Ringfort (Cashel), Tullyduff, Co. Mayo

What survives at Tullyduff is easy to miss, and that is precisely what makes it worth attention.

Sitting on a low rise in rolling County Mayo grassland, broken here and there by limestone outcrops, this possible cashel, a type of early medieval ringfort defined by a stone wall rather than an earthen bank, barely registers at ground level. It does not appear on any edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, which means it escaped the systematic recording that captured so many comparable sites across Ireland during the nineteenth century. The structure has been partly levelled over time, and what remains is essentially a grass-covered undulation tracing a subcircular outline roughly 39 metres east to west and 40 metres north to south. A few large stones protrude from the eastern and southern arcs, but only the western side retains any real definition, where a natural fall in the ground emphasises the outer slope of the former bank or wall.

The interior tells its own quiet story of later land use. Two low, sod-covered stone heaps sit in the southern half of the enclosed area, each around three metres across and only a quarter of a metre high; these are most likely field clearance cairns, the accumulated result of farmers gathering surface stones to free up grazing or cultivation ground. A drystone field wall cuts across the north-eastern edge of the ringfort on a north-west to south-east axis, and levelled remnants of further field walls abut the structure to the east, south-west, and west. These belong to a wider field system extending to the south and south-east, and a possible house site has been identified around 50 metres to the south-east. The broader picture, then, is of a prehistoric or early medieval enclosure that was gradually absorbed into a post-medieval agricultural landscape, its defining wall quarried or pushed flat to make way for the very field boundaries that now partly obscure it.

The site sits in open pasture, and the views to the north, where the ground drops gently toward low-lying damp ground, give a sense of why the slight rise was chosen in the first place. The western arc, where the remnant bank is most legible, is the best place to read the outline of the enclosure.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Ringfort (Cashel), Tullyduff, Co. Mayo. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement