What is recorded here

Fairy forts are no longer visible because people levelled them, farmed them or built upon them. They survive in maps, names and local memory. Ballynabrannagh East still carries one of those lost shapes: a small circular enclosure on a sun-warmed slope, once drawn inside a larger field boundary, now absent from the ground but preserved in the 1842 map and in the story the place tells.

In tillage, on SE-facing slope. Shown on 1842 OS 6-inch map as circular enclosure (diam. c. 20m) surrounded by subrectangular field boundary (max. L c. 70m; max. Wth c. 60m); latter removed on subsequent eds of OS 6-inch map. Enclosure levelled; no visible surface trace. Graveyard (CO064-033001-) and church (C0064-033002-) c. 100m to NW. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 2: East and South Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1994). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

A fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Ballynabrannagh East, likely dating to the early medieval period, is identified by its circular enclosure and former surrounding field boundary. The site is associated with local folklore regarding fairy activity, common to many such forts in Ireland.

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