What is recorded here

Fairy forts are earthen ringforts people stopped calling homes but never stopped noticing. In Killygragy the ridge still carries a shallow circular scar, wide enough for a small courtyard and old enough to appear on early maps. The land may have been a dwelling, a boundary marker, or a child’s climbing hill before it became a fairy tale.

Located on a summit of an E-W drumlin ridge. This rath is depicted on McCrea’s Map of County Monaghan (1793) and on the 1834 and 1907 editions of the OS 6-inch map. This is a subcircular grass and scrub-covered area (dims 27m E-W; 24m N-S) defined by an earthen bank SE-NNW (at N: ext. H 1.6m) that is reduced to a scarp elsewhere, and outer fosse that is largely missing NNW-ENE. There is a modernised entrance (Wth of base 2.2m) and causeway (Wth of top 2.5m; H 0.4m) at WNW and another entrance at NE. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Monaghan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1986). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Revised by: Michael Moore Date of revision: 18 June 2018

A fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Killygragy, likely dating to the early medieval period, is situated on a drumlin ridge and has been recorded on maps since 1793. Local tradition associates such sites with fairy folk, and they were often avoided due to beliefs in their supernatural inhabitants.

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