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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Ballynorig East

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Forty-five metres across, the ringfort stood large enough to hold a whole village or a hundred cattle before a road cut through its eastern half. The earthen bank still rises sixty centimetres above the depressed interior, preserving a small circular hollow in the northwest sector that may have marked a well, a hearth, or a forgotten shrine. Humans built the circle, lived inside it, and left it behind; fairies inherited the vacancy and continue occupying the space people stopped using.
Internal diameter 45m N-S This large circular enclosure is situated three fields NE of KE015-062----. It is marked on the 1841-42 and 1916 OS maps. It is situated on gently sloping land to the SE and has an extensive view of the surrounding area. This site has now been much levelled. All that remains is a semi-circular area which is cut on its NE through E to SE side by a trackway. Nothing E of the trackway survives. For the rest, the enclosing earthen bank is on average 6m wide at the base, .6m high externally and .8m above the interior. The interior is slightly lower than the surrounding land, and in the NW sector there is a small circular depression, 6m N-S. The above description is derived from C. Toal, ‘North Kerry Archaeological Survey’. Dingle. Brandon in association with FAS Training and Employment Authority (1995), no. 541. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 2 August 2013

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What survives
Recorded monument

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