What is recorded here

Cahernaman is a low, pitted stone circle on a Galway rise, misread for centuries as a women’s fortress when it is more likely a robbed burial cairn. The name Cathair na mBan still belongs to the women of local memory, giving the stones a shape of gathering and defence that archaeology cannot prove but does not erase. Its shallow breadth and hollowed surface suggest a place where people kept returning, taking stones or leaving marks, until only a scar of a circle remained.

On brow of a rise 150m to S of Dún Formna (GA120-017001-). What survives is a low circular cairn of stones (N-S 15m, E-W 17m, H c. 1.5m), the surface of which is pitted with hollows. It is surrounded by a field wall from SW to NE and by loose piles of small stones elsewhere. Though known locally as Cathair na mBan, its present morphology and siting suggests that it is a heavily robbed hilltop cairn rather than an enclosure. (Anon. 1887, 45; Westropp 1895, 272; Robinson 1980) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. I - West Galway'. Compiled by Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1993). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

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