Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Moanleana

Fairy fort in Moanleana, County Limerick: a 35 m earthen ring on a south-facing pasture slope, its shallow fosse and scarped edge still marking the circle though cattle have poached the bank and overgrowth has swallowed the centre. It is the kind of place people named for what will not explain itself, a fort for fairies because the shape refuses ordinary use. Perhaps it was a boundary, a shrine, a child’s maze or a farm yard forgotten so completely it became mythical. The stones are gone, the door never built or never found, and the field still turns cows around the dark circle as if obedience were easier than memory.