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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Tawnaghmore Lower

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Killala Bay glitters thirty metres below the ridge where a forgotten circular bank still holds its shape in Tawnaghmore Lower. The earthwork measures twenty-six metres across, yet farm tracks and leveling have cut through its sod-covered wall, leaving only a broken ring and a narrow internal curve. It resists easy belief because ordinary pasture now occupies the space where a rath once stood watch.
In pasture, located on a roughly E–W ridge. There is a fall of ground c. 30m to N of the rath, giving extensive views to N, and to NE over Killala Bay. Immediately to SE-S there is a broad expanse of rolling, improved pasture. This possible rath is not indicated on the 1838 and 1929 OS 6-inch maps. It has been partly leveled. Slightly raised, roughly circular area (c. 24m N–S; 26.2m E–W) defined by a sod-covered bank (Wth 2.3m; int. H 0.2m; ext. H 0.45m, at SW) of earth and stones. The bank is very low and degraded, and distinguished mainly by its covering of rough vegetation and long grass. The interior has a slight slope down from NE to SW. There is a gap (Wth 3.4m) in the bank at SW. From the N terminal of the gap, a low bank (Wth 1.6m; H 0.2m) curves into the interior for 7.5m, ending abruptly. A gravelled farm track, approaching the rath from the W, partly truncating the bank at N, and then turns to S extending through the interior. There is a rath (MA022-034----) 200m to E. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 7 May 2019

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What survives
Recorded monument

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