What is recorded here

Indicated is a degraded fairy fort in County Mayo, visible only as a low earth and stone ring hidden beneath blackthorn and hawthorn. It stands on a ridge overlooking a small stream valley, preserving the shape of an old residence even though later field walls have swallowed part of its boundary. The site resists easy description because human hands kept changing it, yet the ridge, thicket and remaining bank still point to the place where life once turned.

In pasture, in a thicket of blackthorn and hawthorn bushes, located on a ridge with good views to NE along a small stream valley. This rath is shown as a circular embanked enclosure (diam. c. 25m) on the 1838 OS 6-inch map but is not shown on later map editions. Roughly circular area (diam. c. 28m) defined by a low, degraded earth and stone bank (Wth c. 3m; int. H 0.4m; ext. H 0.45m at E) incorporated at SE–SSW into a later field wall. At SSW–W there is an arc of outer stone bank (Wth c. 2m; H 0.3-0.5m) with an intervening gap or fosse (Wth 3-3.7m); this peters out at W and is truncated by the field wall at S. On the N arc, where the enclosure utilises the steep, natural fall of ground, the inner bank presents as a stony scarp (Wth slope 3.4m; ext. H c. 1.35m), and the outer bank may have been incorporated into the line of a field fence, which coincides with the townland boundary. There is a gap (Wth 2m) in the inner bank at ESE, now partly blocked by a later field fence, which may be an original entrance. The rath interior is dotted with small heaps of stones and field clearance debris, and clumps of overgrowth. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 25 November 2021

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