What is recorded here

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Coolboy is a fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Coolboy, County Sligo, Ireland. The circular platform is thirty metres across, sits at the southern end of a broad valley, and retains a visible bank section at its south-west edge. A field fence cuts across the eastern half, where farming has levelled much of the original earthwork. The remaining scarp and shallow fosse mark the boundary between the raised centre and the surrounding pasture.

In lowlying pasture, at the narrow S corner of a rectilinear field. Located at the S end of a broad valley, with steep slopes rising immediately to S–SW of the rath, and the flat expanse of the valley bottom stretching to N–NE towards an arc of rounded hills and ridges in the middle distance. Much of the land to E is now under forestry. This rath is not shown on the 1838 and 1914 OS 6-inch maps, but is clearly visible in current aerial imagery. It has been partly levelled, and is bisected to E of centre by a field fence on a NE–SW axis. It consists of a slightly raised circular area (diam. 30m) defined by a scarp and enclosed by a fosse with remnants of an external bank. The circular platform is still clearly defined on the N arc, but has been severely levelled at NE–SE (the portion lying to E of the bisecting field fence). A discrete section of the original enclosing bank (Wth 2.25-2.5m; int. H 0.3m; ext. H 0.5m) survives at SSW; elsewhere it has been levelled to a scarp with a broad external slump (ext. H 0.55m at N) dropping into the fosse, which is visible as a shallow depression (Wth 2.5-3m). A hint of a rise/cropmark (Wth 3-4m) on the outer edge of the fosse is all that remains of the external bank. Attached images: SL034-256----_01.JPG Rath viewed from NNW SL034-256----_02.JPG Scarp/bank at NW Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 27 September 2019

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