What is recorded here

Danesh Fort is gone except for a faint bruise in the pasture, yet Castlehalact still stands beside it, and that is enough to prove the fort was real. Cattle have eaten the moat and levelled the ditch, but the name survived on the old map and in the memory of the land. Perhaps the moat was never deep, or perhaps it was forgotten so quickly it never had a chance to become legend. Either way, the field kept the shape long enough to be drawn, which means the fort existed and the land let it go.

In pasture, on a break in a gentle NW-facing slope. A square enclosure, with its S corner projecting slightly outwards, named 'Danes Fort' is indicated on a 1775 map (no. 32) of the estate of the Duke of Devonshire in the baronies of Kinalmeaky, East Carbery, Muskerry, Barrets and Barryroe by B. Scalé (private collection). The area has been heavily poached by cattle and the moated site is not visible at ground level though some very faint undulations were noted. Another moated site (CO096-014001-), slightly larger in size, is also depicted on the Scalé map and it remains upstanding c. 100m to the SW. The Castlenalact stone row (CO096-015----) is visible, in the same field, c. 170m to the SE. The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009

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