What is recorded here

Three earthen banks and narrow ditches still mark a small fort atop a Cork hill, though gold hunters scarred the ground around 1900. The name Fairy fort suggests people once believed the site belonged to another world, while its shape records human labour, memory and loss.

In pasture, atop hill. Roughly circular area (39.4m E-W; 35m N-S) defined by three earthen banks with intervening fosses and external fosse (D 0.15m); counterscarp bank (max. H 0.6m) to N. Bank one (inner bank), with low internal height (max. H 0.3m), drops 1.8m to base of fosse. Banks two and three highest on W side; cut into hillside to N giving stepped appearance; level with each other on S side. Stone-faced field boundary skirts enclosure NE->NW along similar line to counterscarp bank on N side. Entrance (Wth: banks one, two and three: 3.7m, 3.5m and 2.55m, respectively) to E; break (Wth: banks one, two and three: 1.6m, 4.75m and 4.85m, respectively) to NW. Banks two and three quarried into on NE side. Interior level in S half; N half slopes gently up on all sides to highest point of hill. According to landowner, depressions with mounds next to them, in SW quadrant, are due to digging c. 1900 by persons looking for gold. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 3: Mid Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). 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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