Excavations at Caherconnell cashel, the Burren, co. clare: Implications for cashel chronology and Gaelic settlement

Caherconnell Cashel is one of several hundred stone ring-forts distributed across the Burren, Co. Clare. Unlike the majority of these smaller sites, Caherconnell measures over 40m in diameter, and is enclosed by 3m-high walls in a good state of preservation. The cashel's location along a natural routeway, evidence for continued use of the immediate area for settlement over a long period, and excavated remains all point to the elevated status of this site. A series of radiocarbon dates place activity at Caherconnell between the tenth and early seventeenth centuries AD, thereby providing new evidence for the dating of such cashels, continuity of occupation and some indication of how wealthy Gaelic families lived in the medieval period.