Barnagh Fort

Internal diam. 18.6m NE-SW, 15.2m NW-SE Barnagh Fort/An Chathair Bhearnach: This heavily overgrown caher is located in pasture on a small terrace below the saddle that joins Knag and Coomduff. The land slopes down steeply to the Cummeragh river at SE, and the site overlooks Lough Currane to S. The NW sector of its enclosing wall forms part of a modern field boundary system. The sod-covered drystone-faced wall is best preserved along the site's S sector, where it has a maximum external height of 1.7m, is .5m high internally and is 2.6m wide. At E the wall survives as low intermittent stretches of overgrown stone collapse. A number of ill-defined stony mounds (KE089-051001-) occur in the interior of the caher. These cannot be identified as the remains of hut structures with certainty. The above description is derived from A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan (compilers), 'The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry'. Cork University Press (1996), no. 560. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 29 July 2013

Barnagh Fort (An Chathair Bhearnach) is a circular stone enclosure, or caher, typical of early-medieval Ireland, likely dating to between the 5th and 10th centuries AD. Local tradition associates such forts with fairy dwellings, and they were often avoided for fear of disturbing supernatural inhabitants.