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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Ballymoney South

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

No one knows who first circled that Galway slope or why, but the earth remembers the shape even when the field has swallowed the name. A fort, a fairy ring, a child's chalk circle, a border drawn in soil: every possibility fits the hole left behind. What is certain is that the land still holds an outline, and people keep returning to complete it with imagination.
On NE-facing slope of a hillock in undulating farmland. Marked on 3rd ed. of OS 6-inch map (1932) as a roughly circular enclosure (D c. 55m). Neary (1914, 122, no. 136) describes it as a 'circular earthen fort … only a segment of [which] remains. The diameter of the garth would be about 120 ft [36.6m]. There remains a 10 ft. [3.05m] scarp N. side and a 10 ft. ditch'. No visible surface trace survives. 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

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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