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Fairy fort / earthen ringfort in Lios Carragáin

Fairy fort / earthen ringfort

What is recorded here

Fairy forts are human ringforts misnamed by later tradition, and Lios Carragáin is no exception: its earthen bank still stands two metres high around a shallow circular chamber on a SE-facing slope in County Cork. The western gap is wide enough for a person or a loaded cart, while old cultivation ridges cross the interior like forgotten furrows. Goats, people, or both may have crowded this small world before gorse and ferns strangled the edge; the fairies arrived only after the humans stopped answering.
In pasture, on SE-facing slope. Circular area (30m E-W; 28m N-S) defined by earthen bank (max. int. H 1.8m; ext. H 2m). Bank heavily overgrown with gorse and ferns; entrance (Wth 2.2m) to W. Interior raised on SE side to compensate for hillslope; crossed by remains of cultivation ridges on ESE-WNW axis. Laneway skirts enclosure to W. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 3: Mid Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). 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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What survives
Recorded monument

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