What is recorded here

Thirty metres across and twice-walled, the Coars ringfort holds its shape on a steep slope above a bog valley, its inner bank still broad enough to swallow a cart wheel. Boys once crawled into a collapsed passage beneath the floor and claimed eight rooms before fear or darkness turned them back. Whether they mapped a hidden hall or merely choked on damp air, the fort keeps that much to itself.

Internal diam. 30m NW-SE This bivallate rath is located on fairly steep N sloping land, on the W side of a bog-covered valley drained by a tributary of the Ferta river. The two banks and an intervening fosse enclose a subcircular area and are densely overgrown. The inner bank averages 4.3m wide and 2.3m high above the base of the fosse. Short stretches of a drystone masonry revetment survive in places on its inner face. The flat-bottomed fosse, now heavily silted-up and in part waterlogged, averages 3m wide. The outer bank is less substantial than the inner one and varies from 1m to 3m high above the fosse and from .6m to 2m high above external ground level. It is flat-topped and averages 3.3m wide. It is abutted by several later field boundaries, and sections of drystone revetment walling present are probably associated with the latter. The original entrance may be located at E. Here the gap through the inner bank is 2m wide, and drystone walling revets its N side to a height of .6m. The corresponding gap through the outer bank splays from an inner width of 2.2m to 4.5m at its outer side. The fosse in this area has been disturbed, and though shallow, there is no clearly defined causeway. A collapsed Man-made underground passage (KE080-020001-) occurs in the NW quadrant of the rath's interior and is evidenced by two rectangular sunken areas, up to .7m deep. These indicate that a passage was aligned NW-SE, and traces of slightly corbelled walling are exposed in the sides of one of the depressions. Ua Riain records an incursion into the Man-made underground passage by a 'party of local boys' who discovered eight 'rooms' before retreating (1927). The above description is derived from A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan (compilers), 'The Iveragh peninsula: an archaeological survey of South Kerry'. Cork University Press (1996), no. 492. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 28 July 2013

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