What is recorded here

Fairy forts are earthen rings people stopped calling forts after they stopped understanding them. In Ballintava the ring still shows as a shallow bank and ditch in low grassland, near another ringfort and the house grounds. That much is clear. What is missing is the life that made it: the doorway, the lamps, the children running past, the reason it became small enough to forget.

In a low-lying area of grassland in the grounds of Ballintava House. Known locally as 'Demesne Fort' (Neary 1914, 118, no. 38), this poorly preserved subcircular rath (N-S 40m, E-W 36m) is defined by a scarp, intervening fosse and outer bank. Possible entrance at SE. A ringfort (GA005-016----) lies c. 170m to NE. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

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