Ringfort - cashel

The National Monuments Service's description

On a slight rise, on a broad undulating shelf on the lower N-facing slopes of the Ox Mountains. The immediate vicinity is heather-covered and broken by rock outcrops while further to W and E there are coniferous plantations. A circular area (int. diam. 25m N-S; 26m E-W) enclosed by a substantial inner drystone wall (Wth 4m) and encircled at a distance of 10m by the remains of an outer stone wall. The inner wall consists of internal and external stone facing with a rubble core. Its external face (H 1.3m) incorporates large roughly rectangular blocks of stone while the upper courses have collapsed outwards and spreads of stone tumble obscure the wall face around much of the circuit. The internal wall face (H 1.6m) is better preserved though it is partially rebuilt. In the interior, at the base of the internal face of the wall SW-NNE is a sod-covered terrace (Wth 2m; H 0.6m), probably the result of wall collapse. The internal face of the cashel wall rises to a height of 2m above this terrace but this is the result of rebuilding when the W arc of the cashel was incorporated into a property boundary. At ground level in the inner wall face at ENE there is a low opening (Wth 1m; H 0.4m) giving access to a niche (1m N-S; 1.5m E-W; H 0.7-0.75m) built into the thickness of the wall. The entrance (Wth c. 1m) is a dilapidated break at ESE.
The outer enclosing wall (Wth 2.5m) consists of a low pile of rubble covered with heather and ferns. From N-E where it coincides with a natural break of slope it has an external height of c. 1m and from SSE-SSW it is incorporated into a field boundary wall that extends to E of the cashel. A ruined townland boundary wall bisects the interior on a N-S axis and crosses both cashel walls.
In the intervening space between the two cashel walls at SSE is a ruined 18th/19th-century stone-built gable-ended house (int. dims.: 8.8m E-W; 3.5m N-S). A more ruinous but similar structure lies a short distance to W. Several small divisions of the space between the cashel walls are probably fields associated with these structures.

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Sligo' compiled by Ursula Egan, Elizabeth Byrne, Mary Sleeman with Sheila Ronan and Connie Murphy (Dublin Stationery Office, 2005).

Date of upload: 18 January 2008