What is recorded here

Fairy forts are human places misnamed, often by people who stopped asking questions and started inventing stories. This is an earthen ringfort in Dough, County Clare: a banked enclosure on a ridge above a marshy estuary, with a causewayed entrance and a second rath nearby. Cattle have bitten through its banks, but the shape remains clear enough to walk, measure and imagine without pretending the fairies did the work.

On top of a prominent E-W ridge in pasture with a marshy estuary to N and good views in all directions. A subcircular earthen enclosure (int. dims. 28.25m N-S; 28m E-W; overall dims. 58.75m N-S; 53.2m E-W) defined by a bank (av. int. H 0.7m; Wth c. 5m; ext. H up to 2.55m), a steep-sided and flat-bottomed fosse (Wth 2-3m) and an outer bank (Wth 3.9-5.1m; ext. H 1-1.25m). A causewayed entrance (Wth 4.25-5.5m; H 0.6m above the fosse) is at E. The interior slopes gently to N. The perimeter is densely overgrown. There are numerous cattle gaps in both banks and some poaching on the external bank at SSW. A second rath (CL015-093----) lies c. 45m to the E. The following images have been uploaded: CL015-092----_01.jpg General view from N. CL015-092----_02.jpg Entrance at E. Rath (CL015-092----) in the background. CL015-092----_03.jpg Causeway at E. From S. CL015-092----_04.jpg Fosse at SE. CL015-092----_05.jpg Fosse and banks at NW. From NE. CL015-092----_06.jpg Cattle poaching at SSW. Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 11 November 2019 This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 7/1987).

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.