What is recorded here

Cloonteens holds a vanished ringfort where beet roots still force themselves through soil once shaped by human hands. The fort measured thirty-two metres in 1842, but ploughs and patience have sanded its edges into a shallow breath on the hillside. Burnt stone and iron slag remain at the west, proving the place was lived in and worked, not merely imagined. What was built there has returned to the field, yet the field still remembers the shape of the hands that changed it.

In beet field, on brow of hill. Depicted as hachured circular enclosure (diam. c. 32m) on 1842 OS 6-inch map; fosse hachured SW->NW on W side of N-S field boundary on 1936 OS 6-inch map. Levelled; N-S field fence removed; roughly circular slightly raised area (c. 43m E-W; c. 37m N-S) remains, most noticeable on S side where interior raised to compensate for hillslope. Fosse (Wth 5m) visible as differential growth pattern SE->SW. Scatter of burnt stone and charcoal noted at W side of enclosure. Lumps of iron slag noted immediately outside enclosure to W. Recorded by Bowman (1934, 672) as single-ramparted fort (diam. c. 45yd) on Mrs Cronin's land. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 4: North Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2000). 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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