What is recorded here

Thirty-eight metres of forgotten boundary still circles the grassland at Balling. Field fences now cut through the ancient ring, reducing a defended home to a shallow scar visible only when the sun lies low. The fairies kept the fort after people left it, which explains why the earth remembers a shape no longer drawn on any map.

In gently undulating grassland. Poorly preserved circular rath (D 38m) defined by a degraded scarp and external fosse. The fosse is present from NW to NE and from SE to SW. Field boundaries cut the monument at NE and SE and at NNW and SW. Another curving field boundary running just outside the fosse, from NNW to NNE and from SE to SW, could overlie an outer bank. 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

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