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Cashel

Fairy fort / stone ringfort
Cashel
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What is recorded here

Cashel is a circular stone fort in County Mayo, Ireland, now hidden inside the garden of a modern bungalow. Its thick drystone wall still marks a space twenty-eight metres across, though ivy, shrubs and a later field wall have swallowed much of the original edge. The interior has become a lawn with a septic tank and a row of conifers, while local memory claims an underground passage in the north-west and warns that stones were taken for other buildings. A ancient fort has been absorbed into domestic life, partly preserved, partly consumed.
In the garden of a modern bungalow, located close to break of slope on the S side of a WNW-ESE ridge. The bungalow lies immediately to N of the cashel. Circular area (int. 28m N–S; 27.6m E–W) defined by a drystone wall (Wth c. 2m) consisting of a rubble core contained by internal and external stone facing. At SSE−SSW the enclosing wall (int. H 1.6m; ext. H 2.7m) is well where it is incorporated into the line of an E–W field boundary, but elsewhere it is defaced and greatly reduced in height. At W–N, the wall (int. H 0.5m; max. ext. H 1m at NW) is largely obscured by ivy and garden shrubs; at N–E the internal wall face has collapsed, and at ENE-SSE the external face is incorporated into, and completely obscured by, a later linear field wall on a NNE-SSW axis. A break (Wth 1.9m) in the wall at N allows access to the interior. Another gap (Wth c. 1.6m) at NE, which may have been the original entrance, has been blocked up. The interior is level and is maintained as a garden lawn, with a septic tank inserted into it at S, and an E-W row of conifers is planted close to the wall. At NE the interior ground level is noticeably lower than exterior ground level. According to local information, there is a Man-made underground passage (MA073-028001) in the NW quadrant. Local information also reports that stones from the cashel were removed over time for use in local building projects. Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 8 November 2017

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