What is recorded here

The fairy fort in Magheraboy is a circular stone ringfort, not a building, and the difference matters because the whole design is a boundary made visible. Its bank slumps across a north-facing slope beside a stream, with hawthorn and bramble thickening the edge until the place feels less like ruin and more like a living margin. People may have stood inside it, watched the valley, or kept what they valued beyond the stones; the castle name suggests it was still imagined as a home long after its shape became hard to read.

In pasture, located on a N-facing slope, with a stream is c. 125m to N. There are good views along the small stream valley. Circular area (c. 32m E–W; c. 33m N–S) enclosed by a broadly slumped stone bank or scarp. The enclosure has been built up on the downslope N half to compensate for the natural slope, and is defined here by a stony scarp (Wth c. 4m; ext. H 1.5m at E, c. 1m at W), topped with a jumble of loose stone and by remnants of a later field wall (Wth 0.7m) which was built on top of the stone bank. Outside the scarp on the N half is a sloping stony terrace or berm (Wth c. 6m). On the upslope S half, the stone bank (Wth c. 9m; int. H. 1.4m; ext. H 0.3m at S) is evident as a broad, overgrowth-covered stony heap which barely rises above exterior ground level but has a pronounced internal slump. There is a low area (Wth c. 1.7m) in the stone bank at E and another slumped/low area at W, but it is unclear if either represents an original entrance. A slight dip in ground level in the NE quadrant is defined on the S side by a slight N-facing scarp which curves NE–W. There is a local tradition of a Man-made underground passage (MA074-009001-) in the interior. The perimeter of the cashel is thickly ringed with hawthorn, blackthorn and brambles, which also encroach on the N half of the interior. It is known locally as locally as ‘the castle’. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 1 June 2021

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