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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Dunblaney

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Two earthen banks and a shadowy ditch circle thirty metres of northern grassland in Dunblaney, marking a human home long before the fairy label stuck. The inner ridge still wears fragments of stone facing at the north, while the outer bank disappears beneath a later field wall from northeast to southeast. A clear gap at the northeast invites entry, suggesting the fort remained useful enough to keep open rather than seal shut. The name change is not dismissal but local instinct: when a place stops serving people and becomes strange, it reclaims the old world.
On a N-facing slope in otherwise level grassland. Subcircular ringfort (E-W 34.5m, N-S 30.5m), in fair condition, defined by two banks and an intervening fosse. The inner bank is breached by numerous gaps from S to W, and traces of inner stone-facing survive at N. The outer bank is overlain by a field wall from NE to SE and at W. Well-defined entrance at NE. (Neary 1914, 115, no. 104) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

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

What survives
Recorded monument

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