What is recorded here

Indicated is a fairy fort in County Mayo, Ireland, holding a circular earth bank roughly twenty-five metres across on a rise between two waters. Hawthorn and bramble still choke its centre, suggesting people stopped entering long before the stones settled into the fence line. The fort may have been a household, a refuge or a boundary marker, but its name and exact use have faded. What remains is a shallow ring of soil and stone, waiting to be seen rather than explained.

In pasture, enclosed within a small, roughly square field, located on a rise. Ground slopes down gently towards a stream c. 40m to W, and there is a river 130m to E. Slightly raised circular area (diam. c. 25m) defined by an earthen bank and enclosed by a fosse with an external bank. The inner bank (Wth 3.8m at SE, 3.3m at NE; int. H 0.4m at SE; ext. H 0.65m at SE, 0.8m at NE) incorporates stones in parts, particularly noticeable adjacent to a gap, possibly an original entrance at ESE. The fosse (Wth 3.8m at SE, 4m at NE) is evident as a shallow depression, with much stone strewn along its base. Discrete sections of the external bank (Wth c. 4m; int. H 0.65m; ext. H 0.3m, at SE) survives as a broad, low rise of earth and stones at NE, SE, SW and NW, but elsewhere it has been incorporated into, or truncated by later stone-built field fences, which box in the rath on all sides. In the interior, a shallow depression (Wth c. 2m; D 0.3m) extends from a low area in the bank at NNW through the interior for a few meters to SSE, but is difficult to examine due to overgrowth. The interior is largely obscured by a thicket of blackthorn, hawthorn, brambles and ferns; the perimeter is ringed with hawthorn and ash trees. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 2 October 2020

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