What is recorded here

No fairy ever touched the place, though men believed it. The cashel in Rannagh West is a human making: a roughly square stone wall on a ridge shoulder, with a southern gateway still lined by jambstones and a collapsed structure beside it. It stands within an old field system, mapped since the 1840s, and its straight coursing suggests people built it to exclude, not to decorate. The fairies entered later, as they do everywhere humans stop explaining.

On the SW shoulder of a ridge in good, rocky grassland with a steep rocky cliff to the W, good views from NE-WNW. Within an extensive multiperiod field system (CL005-160001-). Hachured on the 1840 and 1916 eds. of the OS 6-inch maps. Described by Westropp (1898, 361) as a ’rectangular caher’ with ‘straight and regularly coursed walls’ and with a gateway in the S lined with ‘stone gate posts’. A roughly square cashel (ext. dims. 32.5m N-S; 33m E-W; int. dims. 29m N-S; 28m E-W) defined by a partially collapsed drystone wall. The partially collapsed N wall has outer stone facing (H 2m) visible in the centre and towards the E end and is reduced in height towards the E and W ends. Elsewhere the N wall is reduced to a stone spread (T 3.3-3.8m; int. H 0.4-1.2m) with a later pen incorporated into it close to the centre. The outer facing of the E wall (Wth 2m; max. H 1.4m in W) is low with low inner facing (H 0.25m) visible at the S end. The inner face of the E wall has collapsed to a spread of rubble and the N side of an opening is visible near the centre. The stone facing at the E end of the S wall (ext. H 1.6m; int. H 0.7m; T 1.7m) is well preserved and the W end is reduced to a stony spread. A gap (Wth 1.3m) in the centre of the S wall is lined with jambstones (H 0.93-1m) and a build-up of stone to the E of this gap may be a collapsed structure. The W wall is practically levelled throughout though a short stretch of outer facing (H 1.6m) is visible at the N end. The interior of the cashel is stony and uneven and a house site (CL010-004002-) lies near the centre. The partial remains of a later structure are visible against the outside of the E wall. The following item has been uploaded: CL010-004----_01.jpg Entrance at S from the exterior. Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Lynda McCormack Date of upload: 15 June 2022

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