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Indicated

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Indicated is a dilapidated earthen ringfort in County Mayo, Ireland, where blackthorn and brambles now strangle the west side of a circular scarps. A local story claims an underground passage hides within the rath, suggesting the earth itself may still breathe beneath the rough pasture. The field walls cut across its interior like later scars on old skin, forcing anyone who enters to feel watched by the ridge above.
In rough pasture, located close to the break of slope at the W end of a roughly E–W ridge, overlooked at ENE by the summit of the ridge. There are views to W over a broad flat expanse of bog and elsewhere over gently undulating mixed pasture and bog, some of which is now under forestry. Raised, roughly circular area (27.7m N–S) defined by a dilapidated earthen scarp (H 1.2m at NNW; 0.7m at S). A field wall on a N–S axis extends across the interior, roughly centrally. To W of this wall, an impenetrable thicket of blackthorn and brambles obscures the rath; to E, the interior has an uneven, grassy surface with several shallow depressions, and slight slope down from centre to E and SE. The perimeter on the E half is ringed by hawthorn and scrub. At N a field wall, on a roughly E–W axis, overlies the top of the scarp. At the base of the scarp at NE–S there is another scarp (H 0.7m) faced with stone; this appears to be a late feature, the result of incorporation of the rath into a later system of field walls. There is a local tradition of a Man-made underground passage (MA072-061001-) in the rath. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 6 May 2021

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What survives
Recorded monument

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