What is recorded here

That is a fairy fort in Ballyknock, a roughly circular earthen ring about thirty-seven metres across, sitting close to the base of a southwest-facing hillside. It appeared as a fort on the 1837 map, yet a later field boundary cut across its southern line, suggesting people valued the shape enough to mark it even as they changed its purpose. The bank remains lowest where growth is heaviest, while faint cultivation ridges still trace the interior. Maybe it was a dwelling, a boundary marker or a place for story; the earth keeps its shape while human certainty leaves it behind.

Close to the base of a SW-facing hillside. Depicted as a subcircular enclosure with the designation ‘Fort’ on the 1837 edition of the OS 6-inch map. The OS 25-inch plan (surveyed 1911) indicates that a NW-SE running field boundary was built on the line of the monument from SSW-WNW. Described in 1976 (SMR file) as a roughly circular enclosure (diam. c. 37m) defined by a low earthen bank that was best preserved at W and N and heavily overgrown at S. Traces of a possible external fosse were evident at W. The original entrance was not recognisable. Faint cultivation ridges, running N-S, were visible within the interior. The monument is now visible on an OSI aerial photograph (SMR file) as a curving field boundary from SSW-WNW and as a cropmark from WNW-E-S. Compiled by: Patrick F. O'Donovan Date of upload: 5 December 2012

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