Ringfort - cashel

The National Monuments Service's description

In pasture, on the former deer park of Cahir Guillamore demesne, 120m W of a townland boundary with Rockbarton. Within southern portion of field system (LI031-041001-), within deserted medieval settlement (LI031-041009-), 50m NW of standing stone (LI031-041013-) and 85m W of ringfort (LI031-041011-). Annotated ‘Cahirguillamore’ (Cathair an Ghiolla Mhóir/ stone fort of the big youth, servant) on the 1897 ed. OSi 25-inch map where it is depicted as a circular-shaped earthwork (diam. 37m) bisected by a townland boundary. According to Dowd (1896, 80), this monument forms part of an extensive settlement that 'have been assumed to be the foundations of extensive buildings, and modern work refers to them as being “the remains of an ancient city of great extent”.
Upstanding monument identified as a circular-shaped earthwork on aerial image and annotated on key to aerial photograph (Ó Ríordáin and Hunt 1942, 40-41; Figures 1 and 2 as ‘A’). Ó Ríordáin and Hunt (ibid, 41) refer to this monument as Fort A and describe it as: ‘A fort cut by one of the Deerpark walls is marked Caherguillamore. It is a stone-ramparted fort 25 yards (23m) in internal diameter and the outer fencing of the stone wall may be traced in places. Immediately south-east of this fort a standing stone is shown; this has now disappeared, and we were informed locally that it had been used in the construction of the modern Land Commission houses erected nearby’. Monument identified as a circular-shaped earthwork on black and white aerial photograph numbered 10. Vsible on OSi orthoimages taken 2005-2012, on Digital Globe orthoimages taken 2011-2013 and on Google Earth orthoimage taken 16/03/2016.

See attached Google Earth orthoimage, black and white aerial image with monument numbered 10 (Ó Ríordáin & Hunt 1942, 39) and key to aerial image marked Figure 2 and numbered ‘A’ referring to Fort A (ibid, 40).

Compiled by: Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly

Date of upload: 5 November 2020

References

Dowd, J. 1896 Round about the County of Limerick. Limerick. G. McKern & Sons.

Ó Ríordáin, S. P. & Hunt, J. 1942 Mediaeval dwellings at Caherguillamore, Co. Limerick. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 37-63.