Fairy fort / stone ringfort in Boola (corbally Par.)

Just below the summit of a hill, in upland terrain, the summit is to the E, under pasture with a lot of natural outcrop and boulders. There are turloughs at the base of the hill to the NW and SE. Low, drumlin-like hills. Views are limited to the NNE-E and NW-N, and are good to extensive from SSE-S-W. Borrisnoe Mountain visible to the SW and Black Hill visible to the ESE. A roughly circular enclosure (N-S 30m; E-W 32.4m), identified and reported by Anne-Karoline Distel on satellite imagery (DigitalGlobe; see also Google Earth, imagery date 18 January 2018). It is defined by a stone wall (H above ext. 28m; H above int. 0.26m; Wth 2.55-2.7m), only the foundations of which survive, particularly visible in SSE-W, otherwise the walling presents as a low grass-covered bank. The walling is composed of small boulders (vary in size from H 0.22m x Wth 0.52m to H 0.54m x Wth 0.78m). There is an entrance (Wth 2.8m) in the NE sector. Within the NW quadrant of the interior there is a slightly raised oval platform (dims. 10.4m N-S; 8m E-W; H above int. 0.17m), 3.8m from the inner edge of the enclosure’s wall. An old field boundary with ditch runs c. E-W along the N side, slightly truncating the outer edge of the enclosure. There are a number of boulders in the field, 15.8m to the E of the cashel and others immediately SW of it, these appear to be part of an old field boundary running ENE-WSW which may post-date the cashel and possibly utilised boulders from the cashel. See attached photographs: TN017-093----_01 Overview from SE TN017-093----_02 Detail of walling in S sector from E TN017-093----_03 Detail of walling in S sector external face TN017-093----_03 Google Earth satellite imagery, imagery date 22 November 2021 Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 21 December 2022