Fairy Forts

Ringforts - rath, lios, caiseal, cathair - were farmstead enclosures built mostly between about 500 and 1000 AD: a circular bank and ditch, or a stone wall, around a house and its outbuildings. Somewhere between thirty and forty-five thousand survive, which is an extraordinary number for a landscape farmed intensively for a thousand years since, and the reason is folklore. They became known as fairy forts, understood as belonging to the sidhe, and interfering with one - ploughing it out, cutting the trees on it, removing stone - was held to bring misfortune. Farmers left them, often ploughing around them in circles. That belief has protected more archaeology than legislation ever has, and it has not entirely gone: the Ennis bypass was rerouted in 1999 around a whitethorn associated with fairy belief after public objection. They are on private land; the courtesy is to ask.

Highlights

• The circular banks - farmstead enclosures from roughly 500 to 1000 AD.
• The scale of survival - tens of thousands still standing in worked fields.
• The ploughing-around - fields cultivated in circles to avoid them.
• The belief - folklore that has protected sites better than law.

When to go

April to October for the ground. They are visible from roads across rural Ireland; entering means crossing farmland, so ask the landowner first.

Things to know

Almost all are on private land with no access, no signage and no interpretation. Most read as a low grassy bank in a field rather than a structure. Do not remove stone or damage trees on them - the local feeling about that is real.

Nearby

Concentrations across the west and midlands; Caherconnell and Staigue are accessible stone-built examples.