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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Ballinveala

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Ballinveala stands in the NE corner of a tilled field, twenty to twenty-two metres across, with a thick bank and outer ditch that once marked a boundary between inside and outside. The interior remains level and dry beneath overgrowth, while the surrounding land has been worked and cleared until the enclosure looks less like a ruin than a hidden room set into the countryside. Whoever built it chose a place where sight reaches far in every direction, suggesting the fort existed to be seen, to defend, or to hold something valuable under the open sky.
In tillage, in NE corner of field with good views in all directions, 235m S of townland boundary with Jockeyhall. Present remains consist of a raised circular shaped area (20m N-S x 22m E-W) defined by a bank (Wth 5.5m; int. H 0.7m; ext. H 1.4m) from NE to NNW, reduced to a scarp from NNW to NE and external fosse (Base Wth 2.4m; Overall Wth 7.2m; int. H 1.4m; ext. H 0.9m). The interior is level, dry and overgrown. The bank has two breaks at ESE (Wth 2.2m) and SE (Wth1.6m) and the fosse is infilled with rubble and field clearance at S and SE. A stone wall field boundary runs along the infilled fosse at NNW and NE. The monument is visible as a circular enclosure overgrown with trees on the Google Earth orthoimages taken in 2020. See attached sketch plan surveyed and drawn by ASI and Google Earth orthoimages taken 14/02/2020 Compiled by: Fiona Rooney Date of upload: 4 August 2020

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.

What survives
Recorded monument

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