What is recorded here

Half-buried under centuries of grass and cattle traffic, the ringfort in Ballymacquin Upper still holds its shape: a shallow circle of earth twenty-five metres across, wide enough for a small house, a pen, or a life lived close to the ground. The fieldbank that cut through its northern edge did not erase it; it bent around the old curve, as if the land remembered the shape before it forgot the name. People may have built here to keep out rain, wolves, or neighbours, and the fairies may have taken it back when the fields changed hands.

Internal diameter 25.6m N-S, 25.4m E-W This circular enclosure appears on the 1842 OS map. It does not appear on the later edition, though the N sector of the bank would appear to have been incorporated into a fieldbank running E-W; this incorporation results in a curve in the fieldbank. The enclosing bank, levelled though still visible, is 4m wide and rises to .8m high. The above description is derived from C. Toal, ‘North Kerry Archaeological Survey’. Dingle. Brandon in association with FAS Training and Employment Authority (1995), no. 681. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 2 August 2013

A fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Ballymacquin Upper, Garrynaneaskagh, is a circular early-medieval defensive or agricultural enclosure, likely dating to between the 5th and 10th centuries. The site, with an internal diameter of around 25.5m, has been partially incorporated into later field systems, and local tradition may associate it with fairy lore common to such sites in Irish folklore.

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