What is recorded here

Fairy fort in Castlelands, County Cork, stands as a circular earthen ringfort about forty metres across, marked on maps since 1842 and still holding its bank and ditch despite overgrowth and later dumping. It faces south-southwest above the River Blackwater, old enough to have watched fields change and new enough to have lost its ditch to soil and tracks. The fairies may have built it, or people may have built it for fairies to remember; either way the earth still keeps its shape while the story around it blunts.

In tillage, on gentle SSW-facing slope, c. 450m to N of River Blackwater. Depicted as hachured circular enclosure (diam. c. 40m) on 1842, 1905 and 1935 OS 6-inch maps. Inaccessible due to overgrowth; interior appears to be enclosed by earthen bank with external fosse surviving all round. Revisit in 1991 noted fosse infilled and no longer evident; some dumping has taken place along line of bank to S and recently constructed trackway skirts W half. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 4: North Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2000). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

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