What is recorded here

Banagher Fort is a well-preserved circular rath in County Galway, Ireland, where two banks and a central ditch still trace a forty-one-metre circle through undulating grassland. Its stone-faced inner wall and eastern entrance suggest a busy human residence, yet local tradition calls it a fairy fort, implying that the radiating western banks and hidden underground passages belong to neighbours who never left. People may have built, buried or forgotten the place, but the fort remains vivid enough to refuse ordinary explanation.

In undulating grassland. Well-preserved circular rath (D 41m) defined by two banks and an intervening fosse. The inner bank is faced with stone and is best preserved from N to ESE. A well-defined stone-lined entrance (Wth 3.7m) is visible at ESE. Costello's plan (1902b, 110) shows an annexelike feature adjoining the rath at NW, no clear surface trace of which survives. What is visible are a number of radiating earthen banks from W to N. There is a Man-made underground passage (GA016-006001-) in NW quadrant of the interior, and a second (GA016-006002-) within the site of the 'annexe' at NNW (GA016-005----) lies c. 550m to NE. (Costello 1903, 4-5; Killanin and Duignan 1967, 488) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.