What is recorded here

Fairy forts are human ringforts misnamed, and this is one: a shallow D-shaped scar on a low drumlin above the Scarden River in Lurgan, County Leitrim, its grassy edge no higher than a ankle. The fairies never lived here. People did, probably long before the name stuck, shaping soil into a small defensible place and leaving no gate behind because the land itself forgot which way in. The quarry cut through the eastern curve and the hidden passage beneath the floor are later wounds in an older body, but the shape still reads as made, not born.

Situated on a low drumlin in the valley of the S-N Scarden River, with a SW-NE section of the stream c. 120m to the SE. Grass-covered D-shaped area (dims 24.4m E-W; 23m N-S) defined by a scarp (H 0.2-0.4m). There is no visible fosse or entrance. There is a grass-covered quarry inside the perimeter at E, altering this side to a straight edge and Man-made underground passage (LE012-028002-) is in the interior. The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Leitrim' compiled by Michael J. Moore (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2003). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 23 September 2008

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