What is recorded here

Fate, not fantasy, built the Arda Mór ringfort. It stands twenty-six metres wide on the ridge above Lispole valley, its earthen bank still rising two and a half metres after centuries of rain and grass. The northern ditch remains half-complete, the eastern gap is broad enough for a cart or a fleeing person, and small mounds inside suggest rooms, heaps or buried uses rather than one neat answer. The fort is not a fairy tale; it is a human place that kept its shape because people kept returning to it.

Internal diam. 24m N-S, 26m E-W. A roughly circular univallate rath situated in a commanding position on the E-W ridge that bounds the S side of the Lispole valley. The external fosse survives around the N side of the enclosure for a little more than half its circumference. It is .75m deep below the external ground level and c. 3.5m wide. The earthen bank is a maximum of 2.5m high externally and 1.25m high internally. There appears to have been continuous drystone facing on its outer flank, but this is now either densely overgrown or collapsed and few sections are visible for examination. Much of the S part of the inner flank is also stone-faced. The adjacent field fences also consist of stone-faced earthen banks and it is not certain that the stone facing on the ringfort bank is an original feature. A 2.4m wide gap at ESE probably represents the original entrance. There is also a 2.1m wide gap at W, but there is no corresponding causeway across the fosse at this point. The interior is occupied by several mounds and depressions of uncertain origin, but a small lintelled cavity in the NE sector may be part of a Man-made underground passage KE054-008001-. The above description is derived from J. Cuppage, ‘Corca Dhuibhne. Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey. Ballyferriter. Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne’ (1986), no. 289. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 6 August 2013

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