What is recorded here

Fairy fort in Barna, County Limerick: a 30m earthen ring on a slight slope, banked and dished, with a possible southern gap and a stream cutting through from the west. It stood out on the 1897 map before modern fields clipped its northwest edge, and it still shows in satellite images as a rounded shadow among pasture. People may have lived there, marked territory there, or simply avoided the wet interior where roots and grass have since taken back the work of hands.

In pasture, on slight NW-facing slope with excellent views from W-NE, 50m SW of a watercourse that forms townland boundary with Baunteen. An enclosure (LI050-017---) lies 175m to the N. Depicted on the 1897 ed. OSi 25-inch map as a raised roughly circular-shaped area defined by a scarp and truncated in the NW by a post-1700 field boundary running NE-SW. Surveyed by the ASI in 1999, described as a circular-shaped area (diam. 30m) enclosed by a bank (Overall Wth 2.4m; int. H 0.6m; ext. H 0.85m) from NE-E-S-SW, external bank from N-E-S (Overall Wth 3m; int. H 0.85m; ext. H 0.4m)and intervening fosse (Wth at base 2m) from N-E-S-W. Intersected from W-N by a stream running NE-SW. Possible entrance gap (Wth 4.1m) at S and modern gap (Wth 1.5m) at SE. Interior level, wet and densely overgrown. Tree-covered monument visible on Digital Globe orthoimage taken between 2011-2013 and on Google Earth orthoimages. See attached sketch plan surveyed and drawn by ASI and Google Earth orthoimages Compiled by: Fiona Rooney Date of upload: 5 November 2021

A fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Barna, likely an early-medieval agricultural or defensive site, is associated with local folklore of fairy dwellings and otherworldly beings. Its depiction on the 1897 Ordnance Survey map suggests recognition of its historical or mythical significance in the area.

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