What is recorded here

Fairy forts are misnamed; they are human ringforts, often farmed or quarried until their shapes blurred. This is one of them: a west-facing slope in Newcastle, County Meath, where a broad oval bank once rose above the grass. It may have held a house, a byre, a boundary or a family's pride. The land took back its shape, but the tilt of the slope still points to the room people made there.

Situated on a W-facing slope. A circular embanked enclosure (ext. diam. c. 60m) is depicted on the 1836 edition of the OS 6-inch map where it is described as a ‘Fort’ and it is depicted as an oval hachured feature (dims c. 50m N-S; c. 20m E-W) on the 1912 edition. It was described in 1969 (SMR file) as a raised oval and grass-covered area (dims of top 50m NW-SE; 20m NE-SW) that had been anciently quarried but it was defined by scarps (at SW: Wth 1m; H 0.8m), with an external fosse at SW (Wth of top 4.5m; Wth of base 2.5m; ext. D 0.75m). Its visible profile had been removed by 1995 (OSAP) but it is probably a rath. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Meath' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1987). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of revision: 27 August 2019

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