Fairy forts — so many still here and still relevant today

How many fairy forts in Ireland? Somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 is a very rough estimate, but in all probability there are many more, given the speed with which our lush vegetation covers up everything according to a new book, Irish Fairy Forts: Portals to the Past

Rath Mór ringfort near Rathmore. Pictures: Richard Mills

What are fairy forts?

You will glimpse them, perhaps quite by chance, as you drive along country roads. Unusual grassy circles; strange, tree-covered mounds in the centre of otherwise smoothly-tilled fields; the road making a sudden and unexpected diversion around an obstacle that certainly isn’t a rock before returning to its straight route.

Very frequently (given our gentle climate and the enthusiastic willingness of bramble and bush to swallow up anything that stands still for more than a minute), they are too overgrown for you to be certain of what you are seeing. OS maps, unfortunately, rarely show fairy forts, although megaliths and other ancient archaeological features are usually well marked.

It is a good idea to consult Google Earth. There, these enigmatic earth works stand out vividly — very clear circular formations in our otherwise squared and fenced environment. They are also often still clearly visible amid the gorse and bushes of wilder upland slopes.

Enormous numbers of fairy forts survive across Ireland

Somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 is a very rough estimate, but in all probability there are many more, given the speed with which our lush vegetation covers up everything.

So many ringforts within signalling distance of each other

Just a side note: Don’t confuse fairy forts with fairy rings, which are circles of mushrooms or fungi that spring up overnight, seemingly by magic, and last a very short time. They are said to mark places where the fairies have been dancing the night before. Temporary and delightful, they should be noted and enjoyed. However, don’t venture into one, as that carries risks.

A point to note here, is that both fairy forts and fairy rings are circles, never square. The circle is one of the oldest and most powerful symbols in the world, and was especially important to those who dwelt in ancient Ireland. The evidence of its influence can be seen in many surviving features from those times, including not only the aforementioned forts and rings, but also stone citadels, round towers, beehive huts, and of course the magnificent archaeological structures in which this country is so rich, like those at Brú na Bóinne. Even old Irish graveyards were always built in the round, never square or oblong like those of later settlers.

Huge and impressive old stone forts or citadels (usually identified as dúns, caiseals, or cathairs), built and occupied over generations by powerful chieftains and kings or used as assembly and inauguration sites, were always circular.

Jo Kerrigan and Richard Mills researching for Irish Fairy Forts: Portals to the Past

Even crannógs, those wonderfully photogenic little artificial islands built on wooden piles in lakes as sheltered homesteads of farmers, were carefully built in the round. Usually reached by boat or occasionally by a drawbridge that could be raised in times of danger, they were a practical design, and are still beautiful to see in our inland waters — now often covered with trees and appearing almost to float on the calm surface.

The greater caiseals are for the most part preserved, well maintained, open, and accessible as tourist attractions. The looming grandeur of Staigue Fort in its deserted Kerry valley, for example; the spectacularly-sited Dún Aengus on Inishmore in the Aran Islands; the magnificent Grianán of Aileach, arrogantly bestriding a Donegal hillside; Navan Fort or Emain Macha towering above Armagh; the royal fort at Rathangan in Kildare.

In many cases, later structures, and eventually Norman castles, were built on the sites of such original stone forts. These locations were chosen for the very same reasons as the originals — a good strategic point on a height, positioned to keep an eye on the countryside all round and give early warning of approaching visitors or enemies. It is not unusual to find a modern farmhouse on a high mound where centuries of earlier buildings have stood, each in turn decaying and giving way to the newer structure.

However, crannógs and beehive huts, and the larger caiseals and dúns, have not, for some reason, gathered to themselves the countless legends, superstitions, and beliefs that fairy forts have.

Real fairy forts, or fairy mounds, are far smaller than any cathair though. They do not in any way resemble kingly residences like Dún Aengus or Staigue, except in that vital circular shaping.

A perfectly circular ring fort, made attaching a súgán rope (made by twisting straw) to a central stick and drawing a large circle

Ancient but still a part of our modern landscape

These little features are to be found everywhere in the Irish countryside. They occasionally have a stone encircling wall, but more commonly merely an earthen ditch, often over grown and covered with hawthorn, gorse, and enthusiastic brambles.

A few will have two or even three protective ditches and banks surrounding the central circle, but often these have been eroded by time or filled in by usage of the surrounding fields. The enclosed space may be no wider than 15m or, rarely, may be as extensive as 40m. (Incidentally, in the ancient Brehon laws, the dimensions dictated for the residence of a tribal king, which would certainly have been a caiseal or dún, was c.140 feet, or 42.56 metres.)

So numerous are they, and so long have they been part of the landscape, that they are virtually taken for granted by local residents. Known in Irish as ráths or lios, the briefest glance through a topographical directory or map will show that such features — both the large imposing ones and the smaller ones, though they are not individually identified as a rule — have given their names to innumerable townlands, villages, and locations. They have remained very much a part of our modern landscape.

Just some examples:

• Lissarda (the high fort)
• Lisdoonvarna (the lios at the fort of the gap, a nice example of lios and dún combined in the same place name)
• Lisduff
• Lismore
• Lios napuca
• Lisnakea in Fermanagh means ‘the fort of the sceach or whitethorn tree’.
• Rathmore (the large fort), between Millstreet and Killarney. The town and railway station hug the main road, but south of the conurbation in a quiet field lies the original Ráth Mór that gave the place its name. Every time the train passes Charleville in County Cork, the conductor announces in Irish ‘An Ráth’, which is its proper name, commemorating the ancient ringfort.
• Rathdangan
• Rathpeacon
• Ratheenduff (the little black fort)
• Raheenroe or Raithin ruadh (the little red fort)

There are hundreds more to be discovered in every county...

So what do academic experts say about these so-called fairy forts?

The formal archaeological approach classifies them (quite correctly) as old enclosures, constructed of either turf or stone, depending on what the local environment most easily offered, and used to shelter humans and their animals both from the weather and against threats from raiders or wild beasts such as wolves, which were plentiful here in earlier times.

These enclosures were likely made in their traditionally circular shape by the simple act of attaching a súgán rope (made by twisting straw) to a central stick and drawing a large circle.

Whatever their size or the materials used, they would have taken a lot of hard labour and considerable time to erect. What we see today as a hollowed space within an earthwork probably contained a central mound 10,000 years ago. Indeed, that they have lasted so long, albeit much reduced and eroded by the passage of many centuries, is tribute to their builders.

The huts or houses within a ráth or lios would have been built simply of posts with interlaced rods and coverings of reeds or straw, while in a grander dún or caiseal stone would have been used. There would also have been shelters within the central space for livestock. Unsurprisingly, very little evidence remains of these original layouts, but archaeological excavation has yielded enough information to enable several excellent reconstructions to be built — for example at Lough Gur in Limerick and the Irish National Heritage Park in Wexford.

Even the common usage of the descriptive term ‘fort’ is questionable. A fort is usually taken to mean a strong, fortified, defensive structure, and most fairy forts were anything but that. It’s strange to place a tiny, grassy circle in a field in the same category as the splendour of An Grianán or Staigue, but ‘fort’ is the accepted term, so we might as well go along with it.

Arguments also continue in archaeological circles as to how far back these structures date, but while some are content to say “medieval or thereabouts”, the current trend is to move at least some of them well back into prehistory. It is, in fact, pretty difficult to date something made of timeless earth and stones. Quite often, an arbitrary century is allocated based on what has been found in an excavation. If artefacts are recovered, and these can be dated fairly accurately, then the structure itself is usually given the same date — although that is hardly satisfactory, given that such places might well have been occupied for many generations.

Such a questionable solution can be likened to discovering the most up-to date smartphone in a crumbling old house, and deciding that the house was built only yesterday!

Let’s just say that some of our still-extant fairy forts were certainly here well before Christianity ever came tramping determinedly over the
horizon. We know this because they are mentioned in the oldest writings, which themselves came into being when the zealous, newly-arrived monks started to record in script the oral history of this land, carried through countless previous generations by the druids and bards, and passed down from the old to the young. Written records date from the fifth century AD onwards, but the knowledge and information they contain go back into the mists of time...

Irish Fairy Forts: Portals to the Past (O'Brien) by Jo Kerrigan and Richard Mills

• Irish Fairy Forts: Portals to the Past by Jo Kerrigan and Richard Mills (The O'Brien Press) is out now.