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Cashel is an early Christian cashel situated in Newry and Mourne, Northern Ireland. The monument stands on bedrock composed of a felsic igneous intrusion of Late Silurian to Early Devonian date, geology that would have shaped the defensive potential of this enclosed settlement. Cashels were characteristic fortified homesteads of early Christian Ireland and Ulster, typically comprising a single or multiple stone-walled enclosures built to protect a small community of families, their livestock and domestic structures.
The site is protected by the Historic Environment Division under reference 8254. Early Christian cashels such as this one served as territorial markers and refuges during the early medieval period, their stone construction providing durability in the often turbulent landscape of early Christian Ulster. The selection of this location, with its underlying igneous bedrock, would have provided a firm foundation for the substantial stone walls that define cashels of this type.
The monument preserves evidence of early Christian settlement patterns and defensive architecture characteristic of the period when Christianity was becoming established across the north of Ireland, making it an important record of how communities organised themselves and their domestic spaces during this transformative era.
Cashel is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 8254. View the official record →
Cashel is an early Christian cashel situated in Newry and Mourne, Northern Ireland. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 8254.
Cashel dates from the e.christ. period, and is classified as a cashel. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Cashel is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Ni. The official designation reference is 8254.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Souterrain & ?cashel (6.6 km), Carrigakill. court tomb (6.7 km), Court tomb (7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Cashel's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Cashel stands on Unnamed Igneous Intrusion, Late Silurian To Early Devonian, bedrock that formed in the Early Devonian. The rock here is felsic-rock.