What is recorded here

Rathcoultia is a broken fairy fort on a gravel ridge in County Mayo, halved by a modern fence yet still commanding wide pasture views. The western arc survives as a low sod-covered bank, marked by faint cultivation ridges and tangled thorns, while the eastern half has been levelled into ordinary ground. It is a place where human forgetting and fairy memory collide, inviting wonder about what was lost before the fence cut through the circle.

In average pasture, located on top of a gravel ridge, with a fall of ground to N and SE, providing fine views over flat, lowlying pasture to N and gently undulating terrain to S–SW. This rath is named ‘Rathcoultia’ on the 1838 and 1922 OS 6-inch maps, where it is depicted as circular; the E half has since been levelled. A property fence on a NNW–SSE axis bisects the rath roughly centrally. The W half of the rath survives as a slightly raised semi-circular area (30m N–S; 17m E–W to fence), defined S–NNW by a sod-covered earthen bank (Wth 2.6m; int. H 0.2-0.4m; ext. H 0.7m at NW). At SW, 2m outside the bank there are remnants of a second bank. This is engulfed in overgrowth, and it is unclear if it is an original external bank or merely the remnants of a later field fence. The interior of the W half is traversed by relict N–S cultivation ridges. To E of the property fence, the rath has been levelled, except for a short arc of enclosing scarp at SE–S, which is preserved in the line of a NE–SW field fence. Hawthorn, blackthorn and brambles grow on the perimeter at S and W. Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 13 August 2019

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