What is recorded here
Indicated is a fairy fort crowning a Mayo hillock, its eastern edge chewed away by quarrying but its western scarp still standing two and a half metres tall above the Gweestion River. The lost soil may have built human homes or fed local fields, yet the remaining ring feels like a threshold where the ordinary valley ends and something older begins.
In pasture, crowning the top of a hillock, with very good views over the valley of the Gweestion River. The river is 70m to E, at the base of the hillock, and a tributary stream skirts the W−NW side of the hillock.
Roughly circular area (29m N-S; 18.5m E-W to quarried edge) defined by a scarp, outside which it is enclosed by a fosse with an external bank. The rath encompasses the summit of the hillock, with the enclosing scarp, fosse and outer bank cut into the hill slope. A large portion of the E side and part of the S arc of the rath have been quarried away. The enclosing scarp (H 2.6m; Wth slope 3m, at W) remains intact SSW−NE. The fosse and external bank survive at S−NE, with a break in the external bank NNW. The fosse takes the form of a terrace (Wth 2-2.5m) with the external bank (Wth 2.5-3m; int. H 0.7-0.8m; ext. H c. 2m, at W) on its outer edge, merging with the hill slope. At E, a straight NE−SW field wall overlies/truncates the fosse and external bank.
A field wall/property boundary on a NW−SE axis crosses the rath to W of centre.
The interior is grassy; the perimeter is encircled by hawthorn and blackthorn scrub and brambles. There is another rath (MA071-127---) 230m to E.
Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy
Date of upload: 27 August 2021
Lismiraun is a ringfort situated on a prominent hillock with extensive views over the Gweestion River valley, typical of early-medieval defensive and agricultural settlements in Ireland. Local folklore associates such sites with the "fairy folk," and they were often avoided due to beliefs in their supernatural inhabitants.
The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.
- What survives
- Recorded monument
Places near here
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