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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Killeen (crannagh By.)

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Killeen holds a broken circular enclosure thirty-three metres across, marked on maps since 1839 but mutilated by a road and a farmyard. The surviving bank rises only four to six feet above a southern slope, forming a raised platform rather than a proud fortress wall. People may have lived inside that shallow circle before human wants cut it open, yet the fairies supposedly claimed the fort first and still refuse to share it with the living.
On a S-facing slope. Indicated on the 1st (1839) ed. OS 6-inch map and the 1900 revision as a circular enclosure (diam. c. 33m).The monument was inspected in November 1955 and was described being, 'apparently a mutilated ring-fort. The N side has been cut off by the road, the E transformed by its use as the W boundary of the adjoining farmyard. The bank is about 4' [c. 1.2m] high on W & 6' [c. 1.8m] high on S side, the difference in height being accounted for by the southward slope of the ground level. There is no sign of a ditch. The top of the bank does not rise above the internal ground level, the whole monument being, in fact, a sort of raised platform' (OPW correspondence files, November 1955). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 7 July 2020

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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