What is recorded here

Fairy forts are human ringforts misnamed by folklore, and this one in Garraun South is no exception. It is a double-banked oval, forty metres long, with a real ditch between the ridges and a steep inner scarp on part of the circuit. The banks are not equal: one side is a broad, substantial wall of earth while the other is thinner, and a ledge still marks the inner face. That asymmetry suggests a lived entrance or a changed boundary, not a decorative circle. The name fairy fort is the strange part. People saw the shape, refused to explain it honestly, and gave the unknown a story.

In pasture, on SE-facing slope. Oval raised area (40m N-S; 35m E-W) defined by two earthen banks with intervening fosse. Inner bank (int. H 0.4m) SSE->NE; scarp (H c. 2.5m) elsewhere. Substantial outer bank (H 1.6m)SE->NNE; narrower NNE->SE; ledge along inner bank face SSW->N. Remains of outer fosse visible as gentle slope to base of bank. 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

A fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Garraun South is an early-medieval defensive or domestic site, likely dating to between the 5th and 10th centuries AD. Local folklore associates such sites with the supernatural, often believed to be dwellings of the "good people" or fairies.

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