Ringfort - cashel

The National Monuments Service's description

In pasture, occupying a low rise incorporating bedrock, with good views over the surrounding gently undulating limestone grassland.
This cashel is named ‘Cahernasbunnog’on the 1838 and 1930 OS 6-inch maps. It had already been greatly damaged by the early 1900's when Knox (1911, 111-2) recorded it as follows: ‘The walls were as high as a man fifty years ago, but have been nearly all removed. The great inner ring wall, enclosing a space about 100 feet [30m] in diameter, was 13 feet [c. 4m] thick in three sections. The inner section had two faces. Outside it was built in a single face, and stones thrown in against the face of the inner ring. Another face was built outside this, and stones thrown in as before…Outside this greater wall are traces of two thin walls, with narrow spaces between.’
An originally roughly circular area (int. diam. 31.6m N–S; c. 29-30m E–W), truncated now at the E, is enclosed on the W half by the remains of two, possibly three enclosing walls with at least one intervening fosse. Past disturbance and robbing of the walls has reduced them to low, intermittent sod-covered rises which are difficult to trace. On the E half all the enclosing elements have been removed and the cashel truncated to a linear scarp. A concrete farmyard, with a silage pit and sheds, overlies the SE edge of the cashel.
The innermost enclosing wall is evident as a broad, low sod-covered stony rise (Wth 6-7m) which slumps into the interior. It is most substantial at S–SW, becoming less distinct at W−N where it is marked by a growth of nettles. The outer edge of this slumped rise is defined intermittently at S–W by a basal course of stone facing consisting of massive contiguous horizontally-laid limestone slabs. Immediately outside the stone facing is another stone bank (Wth 1.5-1.8m). The stone facing, therefore, intervenes between two stone banks. This is difficult to interpret but may confirm Knox’s description of the inner wall of the cashel being ‘13 feet thick in three sections’ with an outer section built against the stone facing of an inner section.
A gap or fosse (Wth 2-2.5m) intervenes between the inner enclosing wall and a second low stone bank/wall (Wth 1.8-2m; max. int. H 0.5m; ext. H 0.45m-0.5m) which can be traced in various degrees of preservation, the best preserved portion being at NNW−N. Outside the second wall there is a berm or terrace (Wth 2-2.5m), the outer scarp of which is faced with upright limestone slabs, which may represent the third enclosing wall noted by Knox.
The interior is fairly level, and appears slightly raised above exterior ground level, the result of utilisation of a natural rise. A ruined field wall, evident as sod-covered wall footings (Wth c. 0.6m), crosses the interior on a ENE–WSW axis. In the W half there is a rectangular pit (E–W 2m; 6m N–S; D 0.5m) which extends N–S along the inner face of the stone bank. It is partly filled with loose stone and debris, and obscured by a dense growth of nettles. At its N end a sod-covered heap of stones (Wth 1.7m) separates it from a shallower stony pit or depression (4m E–W; 4.5m N–S; D 0.2m) which extends to the E. These features appear to be the result of relatively recent quarrying; the shallower pit appears to cut the relict field wall that crosses the interior.
Clumps of nettles and thistles, and hawthorn bushes ring the perimeter.

Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 21 December 2022

References

Knox, H.T. 1911 The Croghans and Some Connacht Raths and Cashels. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 41, 93-116, 205-40, 301-42.