What is recorded here

Enclosure in Ballynafauna stands atop a Cork hill, its D-shaped bank and northern platform waiting for assembly rather than siege. Windele heard a folk mote in the name, not a fortress, while local tradition still whispers of a hidden crypt beneath the grass. The stones may have judged disputes, watched herds or simply marked the edge of human memory.

In pasture, atop hill. Roughly D-shaped area (straight side 64m E-W; projecting 80m to S) enclosed by earth and stone bank (H 0.5m). Interior broken by rock out crop. At S, inside bank of enclosure, roughly linear stone-built bank (H 0.2m; L c. 24m) cuts off narrow strip of interior from remainder. Adjoining N side of enclosure, is roughly semicircular platform (straight side 64m E-W; projecting c. 25m to N) defined by scarp (max. H 1.8m). Recorded by Windele (1898, 57) as 'an irregular fort, with a ruinous vallum and no fosse...the name "the fort of the assembly" may perhaps indicate that it was only a place of meeting a folk mote and not a fortified residence'. According to local tradition, 'a boy, some time since, looking after cows, found a hollow sound beneath his feet, which would show the presence of a crypt' (ibid.). 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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