What is recorded here

Ballyhoolahan West holds a rectangular enclosure forty metres long where residents once watched with awe, believing it a fort rather than a burial ground for paupers. The outer boundaries have vanished into pasture, but a smaller square rise still marks the inner chamber where forgotten bodies may have rested. That hidden line remains visible today, preserving a deadly purpose the local legend never imagined.

Marked as rectangular field (c. 40m N-S; c. 45m E-W) on OS 6-inch maps. Bowman (1934, 493) refers to field as 'rectangular fort...47 yards by 41...This fort is looked on with awe by the residents.' In pasture. Field boundaries removed; inner line of smaller square enclosure (c. 29m sq.) can be seen as low rise inside line of levelled field boundaries. Known locally to have been burial ground for paupers. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 4: North Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2000). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

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