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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Knockballyvishteal

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Knockballyvishteal holds Bourke's Fort, a subcircular rath thirty-five metres wide on a grassy rise above northern bog. Two earthen banks and a central ditch survive from southwest through west to northwest, while a sharper scarp completes the circle elsewhere. A later field bank cuts across the northeast and southeast, reducing the ancient boundary to a broken line in the terrain. The fort may have watched the bog or protected a household, but time and ploughs have blurred that purpose into shadow.
On a rise in rolling grassland with bog visible to NE. Known locally as 'Bourke's Fort' (Neary 1914, 123, no. 147), this poorly preserved subcircular rath (E-W 35m, N-S 33m) is defined by two banks and an intervening fosse which survive from SW through W to NW; elsewhere a scarp forms the enclosing element. A field bank cuts 'the monument at NEandSE. 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

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What survives
Recorded monument

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