Rathgall Hillfort

A few days ago, I wrote a post sharing Clonmore Castle. Well, our visit that day was just a detour en route to this location.

Here is a signpost at the start of the trail leading to it.

There is some interesting history written here about the location and its age range.

Excavations took place in the period dating from 1969 - 1979, and over the course of the digs, they discovered a lot of interesting things about the place, including a roundhouse, as well as a cemetery, and metal worked tools, which all dated back to the Bronze Age.

So, that would take active use of the site somewhere around 3300 - 1200 BC.

There is also a section about four concentric ramparts that defended the enclosed location, which dates to the early and middle Neolithic Period. So, that range is somewhere between 10,000 - 4500 B.C.E

Which means that this place is incredibly old.

Beyond the first ring of stone, there is another smaller ring.

This place felt ancient. It was kind of hard to describe, but this site is Ancient Éire.

To imagine that during the time of cavemen, when homo-sapiens were gaining an understanding of fire, and crawling out of the ice age, we have land like this.

Where structures of a large scale were being constructed - or stacked, in this case. It's interesting, and the feeling of walking over these grounds was unexplainable.

I've always been interested - and drawn - to unknown history. Pre-history. It's such an interesting thing to think about. To wonder about people who left only skeletons and stone behind.

The mind can really wander when wondering about that era of our past.

There are these stones dotted around, large in size, some of them. With tended grass encompassing them.

These, for all we knew, could have been ancient burial sites of kings, elders. People of note. Who knows? Or, they may just be nice rocks that found their resting places. Or, perhaps even just a favoured seat.

Look at that view.

Being here, I and @xkasabian spoke about ancient druids, who may well have used this place for ceremonies unknown to us now.

Mysticism. Old magic. Yet another chapter of our past that was mostly lost.

I was in a daze, standing here looking out over these old stones at the mountains beyond, imagining what it must have been like back then. Did someone stand in that same spot near 12,000 years ago and get lost looking at the land stretched before them?

These walls are thick, too.

Obviously, it's hard to judge from pictures alone, but these walls must have been about 6-8 feet in width.

To think that people carried all of these stones and stacked them in a particular order. They weren't just doing it for fun or because they were bored. I'd love to know what their rationale was.

Standing on the outer wall, we could see the inner wall.

What I found interesting was that the grass was dead in these areas, which made them look like two eyes.

Also, we weren't standing on the stones themselves and messing with them. It was a kind of walking route around the perimeter.

There was this tree too where people tied bracelets, bits of fabric and other things too.

There was also a fairy door with some solar lights around it, but the solar lights were all out of the ground, so @xkasabian reset some of them.

The place was so interesting. Ireland, or at least parts of Ireland, is a place where you can find some interesting things along any journey.

Whether interesting to you means nature, trees, mountains...

Or a big statue of a hand, holding an old Shillelagh

This route was essentially our answer to Route 66, but instead of pit stops and bikers, we have old castles, stacked stones and this place.

The village of Shillelagh is the home of the famous hitting stick, sung about in songs, and used by many an old adventurer.

It was quiet, maybe even a little too quiet, but nice nonetheless... or so we thought.

We stopped into a place to get some grub, and nobody was around, so we opted to get some munch in one of the shops so we could sit and admire the stick for a while.

The place kind of gave off League of Gentlemen vibes. "This is a local shop, for local people."

Okay, maybe not that bad. But, it was deafly silent, and there was certainly an unsettling feeling due to it. But it was a really nice-looking town.

Maybe we were just a bit too early, and the place hadn't fully woken up yet.

It was a good pitstop before the trek back, and the prices were way better than in our town.

We had a mini feast for about €11.60, and afterwards, it was time to make tracks.