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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Shanacashel

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Mortimer and I stood inside Shanacashel at dawn, measuring the earthen ring that still holds its shape beside the abandoned farmyard. The bank rises a metre and a half at its tallest edge, stone-faced outside like a wall built to keep something out or show something off. We walked the circle twice. It is twenty-seven and a half metres across, almost exactly round, and the east side has been cut through by a later building. That much is clear. What the ring excluded, included or belonged to has not survived in any form I can prove.
In pasture, on S-facing slope, at W side of abandoned farmyard. Circular slightly raised area (27.5m N-S; 27.5m E-W) defined by earthen bank (int. H 0.6m; max. ext. H 1.2m). Bank stone-faced externally; some facing remains internally. Farm building cut into bank on E side. 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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What survives
Recorded monument

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