What is recorded here

Lisheenagh is a square cashel on a Clare terrace where improved pasture meets rough grazing, its SE corner still holding a lintelled doorway tall enough for a standing person. O’Donovan called it the little fort of the horses, and that name fits the place: a holding position above the Caher valley, built to watch movement rather than hide from it. The walls are not a complete box but a joined complex, with another rectangular building at the NW corner, a dividing wall inside, and a later pen pushed against the east side. It may have been a farmhouse, a horse holding, a boundary marker, or all three at once, because the land around it is still divided into uses.

On a level terrace - at the juncture between improved pasture to the E and rough grazing to the W - on the W side of the Caher valley, within a large multi-period field system (CL004-016001-). Hachured on the 1840 ed. of the OS 6-inch map and hachured and named ‘Lisheeneagh’ on the 1916 ed. O’Donovan (https://www.logainm.ie/en/5808) gives the Irish version of the townland and fort as Lisín each, which he translates as ‘little fort of the horses’; however, the placenames commission records the Irish name as yet to be confirmed (ibid.). Westropp (1915, 251) recorded it as a ‘small rectangular fort of good masonry [with] boldly rounded corners... [and noted] there are no forts inside, and the north side is much injured, as a modern house lies in ruins near it. The walls are well laid slab work, and are 5 to 6 feet high in the south’. A moderately well-preserved, square cashel (int. dims 26.4m N-S; 26.6m E-W) defined by an internally and externally faced wall (Wth 4.6m; int. H 0.4-1.5m), with an entrance through a fine lintelled doorway (Wth 1.5m; H 1.4m over 0.4m of rubble) in the chamfered SE corner and a small projection or outshot formed by another rectangular building (CL005-063002-) at the NW corner. A second rectangular building (CL005-063003-) is located c. 7m N, just south of which lies an earthfast, medieval, architectural fragment (CL005-063004-). An internal dividing wall runs N-S, W of centre, a later pen is built onto the exterior at E and the entire complex is set within a larger oval enclosure (CL005-063005-). Another enclosure (CL005-064----) is located c. 150m S. The following images have been uploaded: CL005-063----_01.jpg W wall of cashel from E CL005-063----_02.jpg Entrance to cashel at SE corner (from NW) Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Ros Ó Maoldúin Date of upload: 27 September 2022

Lisheenagh (Lisheeneagh) is a likely early-medieval ringfort situated on a level terrace in the Caher valley, associated with a large multi-period field system. The site is hachured on the 1840 edition of the Ordnance Survey, suggesting it was still visible and recognized in the 19th century, though no specific folklore is recorded for this location.

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