What is recorded here
Ballymunterhiggin Fairy Fort is a ruined ringfort on a Donegal ridge, its earth bank flattened by time and farm work while two ancient burial mounds still watch from nearby. The fort likely marked human life long before records, perhaps a home, a boundary or a place of ritual now reduced to a faint circle in pasture. Its name suggests locals once believed the fairies inherited what people forgot, turning human loss into mythical continuity.
In the NW corner of a pasture field, located on the level top of a roughly ENE-WSW ridge, close to the break of slope on the N side where the ground falls away to N in a long gently slope. Slightly raised, roughly circular area (32m E–W; 27.4m N–S to field drain at N) defined NE–NW by a low earthen bank (Wth 5.5-6m; int. H 0.3m; ext. H 0.7m, at E) with an external fosse (Wth 3.5-4m). The bank has been partly levelled and is reduced to a low internal lip with a broadly slumped external scarp. At NW a section of bank (Wth 5m) is entirely levelled. The fosse is infilled and is evident as a cropmark of soft, wet ground distinguished by a thicker growth of rushes. At NNW-NE the bank and fosse are truncated by a field ditch, bordered on its N side by an earth and stone field fence. A gap (Wth 2.5m) in the bank at SE may indicate the original entrance. In the E half of the level interior, there is a faint outline of a N–S linear feature (Wth c. 1m), possibly the remnant of a field boundary or of ridge and furrow cultivation. Two ringbarrows (DG107-095----; DG107-096----) are located on the same ridge, c. 160m and c. 60m, respectively, to SW.
Attached image:
DG107-123----_01.JPG viewed from SE
Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy
Date of upload: 10 April 2014
The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.
- What survives
- Recorded monument
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