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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Tubrid Beg

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Fairy forts are not fairy forts. They are human dwellings from centuries ago, misnamed because people stopped remembering the hands that built them. This is one of those: a ring of earth in Tubrid Beg, Kerry, with a shallow ditch outside and two possible gaps where someone may have walked in. The fieldbank and lane cut through part of the ditch now, but the main bank still stands twice as high as the ground inside. That much is visible. The rest belongs to imagination, which is fine, because the point is not to invent fairy stories. The point is to stop covering up the human ones.
Internal diameter 27.2m N-S, 28.4m E-W This univallate rath is situated two fields SW of KE021-119----. A fieldbank and bohareen run immediately to the S of this site in a NW-SE direction. The enclosing earthen bank is well defined and is on average 5m wide at the base. It rises to a maximum of 2m above the interior and 2m above the external fosse. The fosse is very shallow, but still quite distinguishable, although it is not traceable to the SW through S to SE, where the fieldbank cuts through it; elsewhere it is 1.6m wide and c .8m deep. The interior is at a higher level than the surrounding land and access is provided by two breaks to the NW and NE, but whether these are the original entrances is very doubtful. The above description is derived from C. Toal, ‘North Kerry Archaeological Survey’. Dingle. Brandon in association with FAS Training and Employment Authority (1995), no. 785. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 2 August 2013

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.

What survives
Recorded monument

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