What is recorded here

Fairy fort in Lusk, County Dublin: a defended farmstead with a 35m D-shaped enclosure, wide ditch, southern timber bridge, oval buildings, extra enclosures and a kiln, used from about 596 to 885 AD. It is no longer visible beneath the new housing estate, but the shapes still belong to people who lived there: families, workers, visitors, perhaps children running between buildings while bread cooked or barley dried. The fairies in the name do not weaken the place; they remind us that human life can disappear so quickly it becomes fantasy.

This site was excavated prior to development of a housing estate (Licence no. 05E0848). The defended farmstead consisted of several elements, the primary D-shaped enclosure (35m diam.) of which was defined by a large ditch (2.5m wide x c. 1m deep). The main entrance of the enclosure was to the S and post-hole supports for a large timber bridge were found here. Internally two oval structures (DU008-103002-; DU008-103003-) were defined by postholes (6-11m diam.). Immediately E of the main enclosure was a sub-square enclosure (DU008-10304-). A third enclosure (DU008-103005-) was located to the N of the farmstead, NE of which was a kiln (DU008, 06). Several phases of use were indicated by charcoal samples, the earliest of which was dated to 596-672 AD and the latest to 770-885 AD (Giacometti 2011). Compiled by: Christine Baker Date of upload: 5 February 2015

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