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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Dooncaha

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Dooncaha holds a worn oval ringfort where cattle still break through the western bank to graze the hidden interior. The earthen ridge rises one and a half metres outside, drops to ninety centimetres inside, and disappears beneath rough pasture on an NE-facing slope. A narrow fosse runs along part of the circuit while a field boundary completes the rest, suggesting the fort was never abandoned but absorbed into farmland. People may have lived there before becoming folklore, yet the name Fairy fort preserves the older truth that ordinary houses can vanish into story.
In rough pasture, on NE-facing slope. Oval area (31m N-S; 36m E-W) enclosed by earthen bank with external fosse (Wth 2m; D 0.3m) WNW->NE, and by field boundary NE->WNW. Bank (int. H 0.9m; ext. H 1.5m), heavily masked by vegetation overgrowth, has been worn down by cattle accessing interior at WNW. Break in bank (Wth 2.5m) at NNE. Field boundary, of earthen construction, becomes linear SSW->WNW. Interior, under rough pasture, slopes down gently to NNE. Compiled by: Denis Power Date of upload: 26 August 2011

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What survives
Recorded monument

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