What is recorded here

Fairy forts are human ringforts misnamed, and this one in Ballynakill is no exception: a broad earthen bank, double ditch and causewayed entrance preserve a domestic place beside the Boyne. cattle may still graze its flat centre while thorn and tree strangulate the rim, yet the ne entrance remains a deliberate gap through which people, goods and weather once passed. The fort is not a fantasy trap but a neighbourhood boundary made flesh, remembering that ordinary life once turned on keeping a small circle dry, defensible and habitable.

In gently undulating, mixed tillage and pasture, c. 130m S of the river Boyne. A slightly raised subcircular area (int. diams. 62m E-W; 56m N-S) is defined by an inner scarp (H 0.6m at WSW-1.7m at NNE), a fosse (av. D 1.6m; Wth 2.8m at WSW-7.2m at NNE), an earthen bank (Wth 6m at NNE-8m at WSW; int H 1.5m; ext H 2.3m), and a second, outer fosse (D 0.5m at NNE-1.5m at WSW; Wth 3m at NNE-14m at WSW where it incorporates a natural depression). There is a causewayed entrance (Wth 4m; L 9m) at NE. The enclosing elements are overgrown with briar, thorn and deciduous trees while the level interior is under pasture. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 10 June 2011

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