What is recorded here

Ardra Beg holds a thirty-metre earthen ring on a south-west slope, its interior raised against the hill and its outer edge cut by a shallow fosse. The bank still stands one metre twenty high where soil and gravity allowed, while the scarp rises fifteen centimetres higher on the opposite side. People may have lived inside that tilted circle, adjusted the ground for rain and daylight, then left it to farms and forgetting. The fairy name does not dismiss them; it admits the shape has stopped answering human questions.

In tillage, on SSW-facing slope. Circular area (30m E-W; 29m N-S) defined by earthen bank (int. H 1.2m) S->E; scarp (H 1.5m) E->S; external fosse (D c. 1.5m) WSW->N. Interior raised on S side to compensate for hillslope. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 2: East and South Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1994). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

A fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Ardra Beg is a circular early-medieval defensive or domestic site, likely dating to between the 5th and 10th centuries AD. Local tradition associates such sites with the faé or supernatural beings, and they were often avoided or revered in Irish folklore.

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