What is recorded here

Fairy fort in Shankill, County Kilkenny: a 32m by 41m oval earthen ring with a spring-fed moat, a flat interior and a steep NE entrance. The water does not fit an ordinary defensive rath, which is why the fairy name stuck. People may have kept it closed, sacred or simply unusable in wet weather, leaving the true purpose unfinished in human memory.

In wet marshy terrain on a valley floor, in pasture. There are fair-good views in all directions. A large oval enclosure (dims. 32m NE-SW; 41m NW-SE 41m) defined by a flat-topped earthen bank (int. H 1m; ext. H 2m; Wth at crest 3m; overall Wth 4m) and fosse (Wth 3m; D c. 1m) which is dry in the SW-W sector but elsewhere it is fed by spring well which rises in the NW and flows N-E-S, running westward from the SW. The interior is flat. There is an entrance (Wth 3m) in the NE sector with a steep ramp over the fosse. The utilisation of a spring to create a moat may suggest that this is not a ringfort. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 28 November 1987

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