forts historical clare

Although ring-forts of earth and stone had their origins in pre-history, possibly in the Bronze Age, this type of enclosed settlement continued in use for a very long time and became very numerous in the early Christian period. Some, indeed, were rebuilt or extended in the Middle Ages as defensible homesteads even though by that time mortared castles and tower-houses dominated the countryside. Cahermacnaghten, 4 miles east-north-east of the spa resort of Lisdoonvarna, was occupied as late...

An exceptionally interesting though sadly defaced cashel, 1 mile north-east of Kilfenora. The ring-wall encloses an oval space 150 feet by 130 feet and survives to a height of 12 feet or so. Although incomplete it shows a fair standard of building work, incorporating unusually large blocks of stone in the construction of its lower courses. An abundance of easily quarried limestone accounts for the remarkable number of stone forts in the Burren (about 500 are known in the area of 100 square mi...

There are three concentric walls, all abutting on to the edge of the cliff, as at Dun Aenghus on the Aran Islands. The innermost wall, which is also the thickest forms an almost complete circle, but the two outer walls (connected with each other by subsidiary walls, like a fan) only form a semicircle. The innermost wall contains three chambers within the wall, and excavation by the Harvard Archaeological Expedition to Ireland in 1934 showed that the roughly circular area it enclosed had a doze...

Access by foot via a forestry car park signposted to the left off the N18 road between Newmarket-on-fergus and Dromoland. The famous iron age ring fort of Mooghaun, 'one of our most remarkable antiquities. It has three great stone walls of which the outermost, oval in outline, measures 450 m x 30 m' - O Riordain, 1942. It enclosed 18 hectares....

Shortly after leaving Poulawack, the road joins the Leamaneh-Ballyvaughan road. Less than 1 km north, to the left of this road, is the stone fort of Caherconnell. This is a ring fort, strongly built, and fairly well preserved....

It has long been identified - though without any certainty - as the seat of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland from 1002 until his death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Coins found in an excavation of the site certainly showed that a house had been occupied inside during the 11th century, and the Annals of the Four Masters tell us that it was raided and demolished in 1116.
The site proved to have been inhabited at two separate periods, and the house belonged to the first period of...

Some 2 km further on, this time on the left hand side, but at some distance from the road, are the remains of Beal Boru, or Brian Boru's fort. Little more than the site has survived, marked by traces of earthen ramparts and a surrounding ditch. The ring fort is located on a spur of land at the point where the lake narrows before passing through Killaloe and the fort had a certain strategic value commanding the northern approached to the royal palace of Kincora. The fort is of considerable ant...