31/08/2026
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1YZxZQyAw8/
On the largest of the Aran Islands there is a prehistoric stone fort built on the lip of a cliff that drops almost a hundred metres straight into the Atlantic. There are no railings. The inner enclosure simply ends, and then there is the sea.
Dun Aonghasa is three thousand years old in its earliest phase, with massive drystone ramparts in concentric arcs running to the cliff edge. Outside the walls lies its most extraordinary feature, a field of thousands of sharp limestone slabs set upright in the ground across a wide band, packed so closely that no horse and very few men could cross it at speed. Archaeologists call this a chevaux de frise, and it is rare in Ireland.
What nobody can settle is what the place was for. It is called a fort, but excavation has found domestic material, evidence of bronze working, and no sign of a siege.
