Mayo Gems: Kilcashel Stone Fort described as ‘exceptional’

This week's Mayo Gems series by Tom Gillespie brings us to Kilmovee in east Mayo, an area with rich archaeology, to be explored as the Covid-19 restrictions lift.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL experts have described the medieval stone forts at Kilcashel, half-a-mile southeast of Kilmovee, as ‘exceptional’.

The site is worth a visit if you feel it is safe after the lifting of the Covid-19 travel restrictions.

The Kilcashel website kilcashel.com proudly boasts that the most significant group of archaeological features in Kilcashel are the three stone forts or cashels that lie upon a sandstone ridge, just above the 100 metre contour line.

Sadly, two of these have been substantially destroyed leaving the Kilcashel Stone Fort as the only surviving example in the study area.

The stone fort is a national monument and its preservation is exceptional. It measures 30 metres in diameter and is constructed of a single circular wall which is five metres thick and three metres high.

Inside the stone fort are two creep-ways in the circular wall of the fort leading to an internal wall-chamber; a formal entranceway with a lintel stone; four sets of V-shaped steps set into the wall; wall terracing; a souterrain; and two collapsed house sites.

The townland of Kilcashel is from the Anglicised version of the Irish Coill an Chaisil, which means ‘the woods of the stone fort’.

Kilcashel is a historically rich but sparsely populated townland in northeast Mayo.

The townland is located upon a long sandstone ridge and contains pasture fields, woodland and scrub over a 107 hectare area.

Two streams form natural boundaries on the south-east and north sides of the townland and flow into the Lung River, two kilometres to the east.

The streams on the southeast corner of the townland border also represent the county boundary between Mayo and Roscommon.

Ten recorded archaeological sites are known for the Kilcashel landscape study area, including a Bronze Age fulachta faith - a cooking site, made up today by a mound of burnt stones.

There is also an undated enclosure, substantially destroyed in the 20th century, and three early medieval cashels - circular stone forts.

There is also a bullion stone - a large boulder with a smooth cup cut into it - two early medieval souterrains - man-made underground chambers - and two early medieval house sites.

Nine more archaeological sites are located within a one-kilometre radius of Kilcashel and a further 40 more within a two-kilometre radius.

Several archaeological features have already been identified by the Kilcashel Landscape Project by examining early maps - these show that Kilcashel underwent significant landscape changes during the mid-19th century as scrub was cleared, bog was drained and the lands sub-divided into small, regular field schemes, with boundaries comprised of local stone quarried from rock outcrops or picked up as loose field stones.

Kilmovee is on the R325 road, midway between Kilkelly and Ballaghaderreen.