What is recorded here

Fairy fort in Baunteen is a 35-metre earthen ring on a slight rise, old enough to appear on the 1840 map and still standing in pasture beside Barna. Its bank is less than a metre high but unbroken, with two possible gaps facing northeast and southwest as if inviting entry rather than blocking it. The fairies may have built it for dancing, or people may have built it for living and the fairies simply inherited the shape. Either way, the ring remains: a shallow circle on open ground, holding its form long after the hands that made it have forgotten the work.

In level pasture, on a slight rise with excellent views from SW-NE, 45m NE of townland boundary with Barna. Depicted on the 1840 ed. OS 6-inch map as a circular-shaped area enclosed by a bank. Shown on the 1897 ed. OS 25-inch map as a circular-shaped area enclosed by a bank, with possible entrance gap at NE. Surveyed by the ASI in 1999, described as a slightly raised circular-shaped area (25m N-S; 35m E-W) enclosed by an earthen bank (Overall Wth 4.7m; int. H 0.60m; ext. H 0.8m). Interior is level and dry with moderate overgrowth. Possible ramped entrances (Wth 1.8m) at NNE and SSE (Wth 1.7m). Scrub-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: 4 November 2021

A fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Baunteen, likely dating to the early medieval period, is marked on 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps as a circular enclosure with a bank. Local tradition associates such sites with fairy folklore, and they were often avoided due to beliefs in supernatural inhabitants.

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