What is recorded here

Fairy forts in Ireland are often the discarded homes of humans, and Castle Park still occupies the northern half of that ancient ring. A surviving earthen bank, fourteen feet high and twenty-two feet wide at its base, curves beside the house like a forgotten shoulder. The rest vanished beneath gardens or time, leaving only a faint penannular ghost on old maps. What remains is not a complete fort but a living boundary, marking the exact moment human ownership stopped and fairy ownership began.

In grounds of Castle Park house. Bowman (1934, 502) recorded fort in K.G. Priestly's, 'single-rampart, only one-sixth of the circuit now stands, this portion being c. 14 feet high, and c. 22 feet wide at base'. Very faint outline of penannular circle (diam. c. 40m) NNE->W, defined by dotted line (doubled S->WSW), surrounds Castle Park house on 1842 OS 6-inch map ; may indicate former extent of ringfort. Arc formed by earthen bank survives to SW of house. Bank (int. H 2.75m; ext. H 1.35m) forms part of rockery; stone faced to S. House appears to be built in N half of enclosure. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 4: North Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2000). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

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