Despite the temptation to linger in bed, I was up and away
at 6am, keen to visit Dun Aonghasa before the hordes I had been told would
arrive on the morning ferry. Treasa had not exaggerated when she said that the
fort was only 20 minutes’ walk from the house (as it turned out I could see it
from my bedroom window).
Perched on 300ft high cliffs, on the south side of the
biggest of the three Aran Islands, Dun Aonghasa is a semi-circular stone fort
which looks out over the Atlantic. Made up of what would be three concentric
circles if they didn’t end in cliff and sea, the fort would have enclosed about
14 acres of land. It is thought that the innermost circle would have been where
human dwellings were situated, while grain would have been grown in the central
circle, and cattle grazed in the outermost one.
The second circle is surrounded by a chevaux de frise, an
area of stones deliberately turned on their sharpest sides, which would have made
it virtually impossible for anyone to approach the fort on horseback. It would have been a nice bit of real estate during its golden
era – thought to be 1500 BC to 700BC. No wonder Treasa nearly fell off her chair
laughing when I said that I worked in a heritage building in Australia – built in
1877.
