What is recorded here

Fairy forts are often little more than a hollow or a heap of stones, but Rathcoola East had a true ringfort shape: a circular bank high enough to keep out weather and perhaps unwanted visitors, with an entrance and even an underground passage inside. It stood on a farm slope where people lived and worked, which makes it easier to imagine than most fairy forts: a small defended place, not a childish invention. The tragedy is that it was levelled around 1967, erased by the same ordinary progress that makes such places useful. What remains is a hole in the land's memory, a circle removed so cleanly that even the soil forgot it.

In tillage, on SW-facing slope. Hartnett (1939, 207) noted circular enclosure (diam. '111 feet') defined by single '5 feet high' bank, with entrance to S; Man-made underground passage (8926) in interior. According to local information, levelled c. 1967; no visible surface trace. 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

A fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Rathcoola East, likely dating to the early medieval period, is characterized by a circular enclosure with a 5-foot-high bank and a southern entrance, as described by Hartnett in 1939. It contains a man-made underground passage and is associated with local folklore referring to it as a fairy site.

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