The Ringfort in the Fields

Drive south-west from Castlewellan on the Hilltown road and after about three kilometres, a brown heritage sign appears at the roadside. There is no drama. No cliff edge, no castle ruin on a hilltop. Just a lane through farmland, a gate, and then — rising from the grass like something the field itself decided to grow — an oval wall of dry stone, shoulder-height, enclosing a space roughly the size of a tennis court. This is Drumena Cashel. Droim Éanach — the ridge of the birds.

It has been standing here since the early Christian period — roughly the 5th to 9th century, though nobody can pin it to a single decade. When this fort was occupied, the Roman Empire had already fallen, Patrick had come and gone, and the people living in these hills were farmers, herders, and occasional raiders. They built their homesteads to last. The oval stone enclosure held a small settlement — a house or two, storage, maybe livestock — surrounded by walls thick enough to discourage wolves, cattle thieves, and neighbours with grievances.

What makes Drumena more than just a wall in a field is what lies beneath it. Built into the structure is a souterrain — an underground passage constructed from stone slabs, running beneath the enclosure wall and extending outward. The word comes from the French sous terrain, literally “under the earth.” The passage is low and narrow — you will need to crouch, then crawl — and it feels older than anything you have touched with your hands.

What were they for? Archaeologists have debated this for decades. Cold storage is the most practical explanation — the temperature underground stays constant, making it ideal for keeping food cool through the summer. But refuge is equally plausible. If raiders appeared on the horizon, women and children could slip into the passage and wait in the dark until the danger passed. The entrance is small enough that a single person with a weapon could defend it. Some souterrains have creeps — constrictions so narrow that you can only pass through one at a time, on your belly. Drumena's passage is tight but manageable. You emerge on the other side with grass-stained knees and the quiet thrill of having been somewhere most visitors never go.

Drumena is a state-care monument, managed by the Department for Communities. It was partially restored in the 1920s — some of the interior features were reconstructed — but the walls themselves are substantially original. Stand inside the enclosure and you can see the foundations of buildings that once stood here: a T-shaped house, a second smaller structure. The layout is clear enough that you can trace the outline of rooms, doorways, and the narrow entrance passage that controlled access through the wall.

What strikes you most, though, is not the archaeology. It is the setting. Drumena sits in open farmland, with the Mourne Mountains rising to the south and the fields stretching away in every direction. Cows graze nearby. The wind moves through the grass. There is no visitor centre, no gift shop, no queue. Just you, a stone fort, and a landscape that looks remarkably like it must have looked when the people who built this place were still living inside it. That is the magic of Drumena — it has not been packaged. It sits in the field, exactly where it has always been, and it lets you come to it on its own terms.