BIVALLATE RATH: PRETTY MARY'S FORT in Aughnafosker

Pretty Marys Fort in Aughnafosker is a bivallate rath, meaning two rings of earth rather than one. That double line suggests the place wanted keeps within keeps, as if ordinary residence were not enough and someone had to build a second skin around the first. In County Down such forts still stand because people kept returning to them, living beside them or remembering them as landmarks. Pretty Mary may have been a resident, a lover, a child or a joke repeated until it became true, but the name gives the earth an owner and the owner makes the circles easy to picture.