What is recorded here

Listerlahan is a circular earthen fort in Cloonacannana where a road clipped the north edge and a hidden passage may still breathe beneath the grass. The fairies never left; they merely stopped answering human questions. People walked past the scarp, children touched the hawthorn, and the fort kept its own time. What is missing is not gone, but waiting for someone who remembers how to ask.

In pasture, located on level ground, with a fall of ground for c. 75m to E and NE towards a stream, which marks the townland boundary. There is a derelict farmstead in the adjoining field to NE and a modern cottage and garden immediately to SW. The NW−N edge of the rath is clipped by a road. This rath, which is known locally as ‘Listerlahan’, consist of a raised, roughly circular area (25m E-W; 24m N-S) defined by an earthen scarp (H 0.4m). At N−NE the scarp (H 2.2m) is significantly higher, enhanced by a natural fall of ground. At N a section of the scarp presents an almost vertical face where it drops to the road –this is clearly the result of modification during the road construction. An outer enclosing element, probably a fosse, is shown curving around the SW arc of the rath on the 1919 OS 6-inch map, but this is no longer evident. A semi-circular hollow (6.8m E-W; 5.6m N-S; D 0.6m) at the N edge of the interior immediatly adjacent to the enclosing scarp. According to local information, ‘an opening’ was visible once visible in the exterior slope of the scarp below this depression. This may be evidence of a Man-made underground passage (MA062-028001-). A roughly semi-circular area (7.5m E-W; 5m N-S) has been dug out of the scarp on the S side of the rath. The interior is grassy; hawthorn rings the perimeter. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 25 November 2020

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