What is recorded here

Half a million years of human life in this area has left marks everywhere, but Ráth Chairn still wears a smooth D-shaped scar on a gentle south-facing hill. The earth rises only fifty centimetres in places, yet that small ridge may have held a door, a hearth, a child’s shadow or a warning against strangers. The fairies keep what people forgot, and their fort remains visible enough to mark but incomplete enough to resist explanation.

Situated on the gentle S-facing slope of a broad low hill. A circular embanked enclosure (ext. diam. c. 35m) is depicted faintly on the 1836 edition of the OS 6-inch map where it is described as a ‘Fort’, and it is represented as a hachured D-shaped feature backing onto an E-W field bank at N on the 1912 edition. This is a D-shaped grass-covered area (dims c. 32m E-W; c. 26m N-S) defined by a slight scarp most visible E-S (Wth 2m; H 0.5m) but it is truncated by an E-W road bank at N and a N-S field bank at W. 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: 17 April 2019

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