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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Coolgarriff

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Coolgarriff holds a vanished ringfort where a stream still cuts southern pasture. Hartnett measured a two-hundred-foot interior, earthen bank, shallow fosse and northern passage, while later levelling reduced much of the rampart to a faint trace. The name Fairy fort suggests people once believed the ground belonged elsewhere, yet the visible remains are human: bank, stone, drain and enclosure shaped for ordinary life.
In pasture. Levelled; depicted as hachured circular enclosure (diam. c. 45m) on 1842 OS 6-inch map, with stream crossing S half of interior in E-W direction and possible Man-made underground passage (CO060-151002-) inside N bank. Hartnett (1939, 98) describes interior (overall diameter 200ft) enclosed by earthen bank 'with a good proportion of large stone' and 'shallow outer fosse'; 'open drain' crosses sites 'at the S.E.'; S of this, 'rampart erased but is still traceable'. In interior remains of bank form arc which separates NE quadrant from remainder of interior (ibid.). Possible standing stone (CO060-151003-) in NE quadrant. 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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