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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Cloghboola Beg

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Half a million years of rain and bootwork have not erased the thirty-five metre circle at Cloghboola Beg. It sits astraining the steep slope above the western stream, its earthen bank still standing one and a half metres high where human hands first shaped the hill. The fairies may have built it in a night, but people certainly lived there, loved there, argued there and died there before anyone thought to call it magical. What is left is not a puzzle about gods or men. It is a boundary marker made of soil, still marking the difference between owned land and forgotten life.
In pasture, on steep NW-facing slope, overlooking stream to W and SW. Circular area (diam. c. 35m) defined by earthen bank (int. H 1.6m; ext. H 1.2m), incorporated into field fence system to NW. External fosse survives to NNE for short section; slight depression outside bank to E and S. Entrance to NNE (Wth 4m). Interior heavily overgrown; raised on NW and W sides to compensate for hillslope. According to Broker (1937, 45) 'double fence but one knocked about 1885 by Hugh Kelliher'. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 3: Mid Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

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What survives
Recorded monument

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