What is recorded here

Thirty metres of packed earth circle Gowla ridge, breaking only where a southern causeway once forced entry across the fosse. That much is visible; the rest belongs to imagination. Someone carried soil, dug a ditch and built a threshold large enough to exclude strangers but small enough to know every neighbour by heart. Fairy forts sound like fantasy until you measure them, yet measurement stops where memory begins. The gap still points south, waiting for the person clever enough to stop asking whether the story is true and busy enough to remember what it felt like when somebody first walked through.

On a ridge in grassland. Subcircular rath (E-W 30m, N-S 27m), in fair condition, defined by two banks and an intervening fosse. The inner bank is clearly visible except from NNE to E, and from SW to NNW where a scarp forms the enclosing element. A gap at S may mark the original entrance as traces of a possible causeway are visible across the fosse here. A field bank overlies the outer bank from SE through S to WNW. 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). Updated by: Olive Alcock Date of revised upload: 16 August 2023

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