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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Woodfield (ballymoe By.)

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Mairi, a young woman from the nearby townland, stopped her cart inside the ring during a summer storm. She claimed the earthen bank breathed like a living thing and the small cairn in the centre warmed her hands. She left behind a rowan berry and a ribbon of red cloth, then walked home through the rain without looking back. The fort kept her gifts, and the field bank still cuts across its northern edge like a knife through forgotten skin.
On a gentle rise in undulating pasture, overlooking bogland to S. A D-shaped rath (N-S 66m, E-W 52m), in fair condition, defined by an earthen bank and external fosse. The bank is present from E to SE; elsewhere a scarp forms the enclosing element. A field bank cuts the monument at NW and NE and no visible surface trace survives to N of it. A small subcircular cairn (L 4m, Wth 8m) occupies the interior. (Knight c. 1975, 111) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

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What survives
Recorded monument

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