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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Curragh (duhallow By., Kilbrin Par.)

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Fairy forts are human ringforts misnamed by legend. This is a real rath in Curragh, Kilbrin, drawn as a circular enclosure on the 1842 map and still marked by a surviving ditch and field bank. It may have held a home, a boundary or a small defensive place before farming and changing ownership wore it into a low rise. The fairy label does not remove the people; it only admits that the particular lives have stopped being identifiable.
In tillage, on S-facing slope. Depicted as hachured circular enclosure on 1842 OS 6-inch map; as circular area (diam. c. 28m) enclosed by hachured fosse on 1905 and 1937 OS 6-inch maps. Levelled; visible in field of barley as raised area; fosse survives E->SSW skirted by earthen field boundary (int. H 0.9m; ext. H 1.2m) which may incorporate remains of second bank. Low rise, to W of N-S field boundary, at W side of site, also suggests remains of second bank. Bowman (1934, 402) record levelled fort in D. Nugent's, single ramparted (diam. c. 39yd). 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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What survives
Recorded monument

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