What is recorded here

Fairy forts are earthen rings people once lived in or marked before they stopped using them. In Ballykenny the ring is about 32m across, with a shallow scarped edge and outside ditch, now grazed and crossed by a field boundary. The name suggests locals stopped calling it a human home and gave it to the fairies instead. That is often what happens when a place becomes empty: people invent a tenant rather than admit they forgot the last one.

In pasture, on slight NW-facing slope. Circular area (diam. 32m) defined by scarped edge (H 0.45m; Wth 5.4m) with external fosse (D 0.3m; Wth 3.2m). Field boundary runs through interior crossing scarped edge at SW and NE. Fosse and scarped edge very shallow SW->NE. Interior level and under grass. Compiled by: Denis Power Date of upload: 26 August 2011

A fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Ballykenny 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 fairy folklore, and they were often avoided due to beliefs in supernatural inhabitants.

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