Fairy fort / stone ringfort in Cloon West

The cashel ringfort is located on sloping hill pasture approximately 260m above sea level, circa 0.8km to the north-east of Lough Reagh and 1.2km to the south-east of Cloon Lough. The ground immediately south of the cashel is covered by blanket peat, with more extensive blanket peat lying to the east, i.e. upslope of the cashel. Around the other sides of the cashel the ground is a patchwork of blanket peat and rough stony pasture. The monument is not obscured by any trees, although there is some western gorse growing on its walls. Some of the associated relict walls in the surrounding field system are covered by blanket peat. The sheep grazing this hillslope do not appear to be causing damage to the monument at the monument. This cashel ringfort is oval in plan, oriented NW to SE. Its maximum diameter is 30m (NW to SE) and 24m (SW to NE). It is defined by a substantial stone wall which measures 2m to 3m in thickness and 0.8m to 1.6m in height. Much of it is quite collapsed, making it difficult to tell how it was originally constructed. However, a few stretches of the wall’s external face survive on the west, looking downslope. These faces were constructed using medium- to large-sized rubble stones gathered from the surrounding landscape, with the largest stones, boulders and even some bedrock forming the base of the wall. Very rough coursing is evident in these faces. The core and inner face of the cashel wall seem to have slightly smaller stones, but it is difficult to be sure due to the build-up of sod material on the interior of the cashel. There is one very clear entrance-way into the cashel on the NE. It is 2m wide and flanked on the west side by an orthostat which is 1.25m long, 0.8m high and 0.4m wide. Inside the cashel are the remains of at least three drystone huts. The biggest and clearest is a sub-rectangular shaped hut found 3m inside the entrance to the cashel. It measures 2.2m by 1.7m internally. Lying between this sub-rectangular hut and the orthostat which flanks the cashel entrance is another smaller oval-shaped hut or ancillary structure measuring 1.2m in internal diameter. A third hut abuts the inside of the south of the cashel. It is sub-circular in shape with a cairn on the east of it, abutting the cashel wall. There is a possible fourth hut in the west of the cashel’s interior, where a linear cairn runs parallel to a stretch of exposed bedrock. The cashel forms part of a complex system of relict field walls which covers the approximately 0.5km2 of hillslope which lies between the townland boundary on the north, Coom Lough in the north east and a stream in the south which flows into Lough Reagh. The relict walls in question are very low, typically 0.2m to 0.4m in height and 0.3m to 0.6m in thickness. In wet patches they tend lie under or in blanket peat. At least two of the relict walls start at the cashel itself, radiating out from either side of the cashel’s northern entrance. Another appears to emerge from the south of the cashel, joining up with a relict wall that lies partly under blanket peat. What is more, there are at least four additional hut sites in the wider field system, three of which abut relict walls. Compiled by: Dr Eugene Costello Date of upload/revision: 9 November