What is recorded here

Kilfenora’s stone ringfort stands as two faint concentric rings, barely twenty-eight metres across, buried in brambles and forgotten pasture. Westropp called it handsome in 1915, yet even then most of its walls had fallen. The fort keeps no guard, displays no pride and resists no invasion; it has simply stopped being useful to human memory. What remains is a low circle of limestone, an underground passage and a second cashel nearby, all waiting for someone to notice that forgetting is not the same as ending.

In a low-lying area of limestone pavement amid scrub and brambles and uncleared pasture and within an extensive field system (CL009-059001-). Overlooked from all sides. Hachured on the 1840 and 1916 eds. of the OS 6-inch map. Described by Westropp (1915, 264) as ‘two concentric rings’ and a ‘well built “handsome” fort, but not very large’ which is ‘nearly all knocked down’. A subcircular area (27.5m N-S; 28m E-W) defined by a low collapsed and partially overgrown wall of limestone blocks with a rubble core. The inner and outer facing is intermittently visible and the two faces coincide at W (T 2-2.8m) with up to four courses surviving at SE and SW (max H. 0.6–1m ). The interior is undulating and overgrown around the perimeter. There is a Man-made underground passage (CL016-019002-) W of centre. In the NW quadrant there is a line of upright limestones (L 2m) parallel to the wall which may once have formed part of an internal structure. A later overgrown concentric stone wall encloses the cashel. Another cashel (CL016-018----) is located c. 88m to the WNW. Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Lynda McCormack Date of upload: 15 March 2022

A low-lying stone ringfort in Kilfenora, likely dating to the early medieval period, situated in a limestone pavement landscape and historically mapped as a hachured feature. Local tradition associates such sites with fairy folklore, reflecting their enigmatic and otherworldly character in Irish cultural memory.

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