It’s a rare Irish farmer that would admit to a belief in fairies. But even more unusual is a farmer that would risk incurring their infamous wrath.

The fairies, as a community of other-realm creatures, remain an untouchable force on the Irish farming psyche. Ironically, it is this superstitious regard for an ethereal community that has preserved the estimated 80,000 ringforts that litter the Irish landscape. And the protection of the ancient fairy forts could yet prove a blessing for rural communities, building a future for generations to come.

Ring Forts

The ring fort is an ancestral homestead, typically comprised of circular structures with embankments housing small dwellings, often sitting above a network of underground chambers or souterrains. The most common archeological site on the Irish landscape, there are some 40,000 ringforts documented in the ordnance survey maps of 19th century Ireland.

Shane Lehane, a lecturer in the folklore and ethnology department at UCC, says it is estimated there could be twice as many as are on the maps.

“I tell my students they are so common that if you throw a stone you would probably hit one. They are literally everywhere,” he says.

Most date to the early medieval period, but there are numerous examples that precede this era and fall within the Celtic period or Iron Age. They continued to be built right up to the 17th century and one farmhouse built in the centre of a ring fort was occupied within living memory, in the Sliabh Luachra region that borders Limerick, Cork and Kerry.

The ringforts were early farmsteads, Lehane explains.

“They were the enclosures of the farming community. The cattle would have been kept in the vicinity of the ringfort but in times of cattle raiding they were used to protect them. Some of the forts were literally cattle corrals,” he says.

Depending on the stature of their occupants, the forts had a number of underground features known as souterrains. Archaeological digs reveal common features.

“They were very often elaborate and quite big, sometimes the entire interior area of the ringfort was covered in these underground chambers – little tunnels opening into larger areas, some of them formed from rock that was cut into and lintelled over. Some with little air ducts. Amazing structures,” he says.

The cellars had multiple uses, including refuge in case of attack, a place to keep slaves and the storage of produce such as milk and cheese.

“At Liosnagun, near Darrara in Clonakilty, there was an excavation of an entire interior with meandering tunnels. One of the most interesting things about that is when you go into a ringfort now, you often look for a depression or opening in the ground,” Lehane says.

This opening in the ground gives rise to the notion of ringforts as portals to the other world. In Irish lore, with the arrival of Christianity to Ireland, the Tuatha de Danann, the collection of pagan gods worshipped by early Irish farmers, were banished collectively underground following a battle. They became known as the sidhe or fairies.

“People had no idea who built these or what they were and people tended to think they belonged to the ancestors, the other world, the mythological Tuatha de Dannan. There was huge suspicion about them, that if you interfered with them nothing but bad luck would befall you,” Lehane says.

Fairy Folklore

Storyteller Eddie Lenihan – one of Ireland’s chief collectors of fairy folklore – says the majority of Irish farmers have maintained these structures out of respect for the old ways, but destruction of our cultural heritage is more evident now than ever.

“In our modern age, we don’t believe in anything – a lot of people don’t even believe in religion. There is a price to pay for that and the price is shock or surprise when something does happen,” he says.

“I have been collecting these stories for 40 years and the older people who tell these stories, they are not fools,” he says.

“Why in God’s name would you be demolishing antiquities on your land when that might be all you have in the future. These are the things that might make your land unique – an old castle, a ringfort or standing stones?”

Lenihan cites the medieval Caherconnell stone fort near Carron in Co Clare, which enjoys a four-star TripAdvisor rating and attracts thousands of tourists every year, as an example of how the protection of archaeological antiquities can pay off.

A writer and performer, Lenihan made international headlines in 1999 when he warned that the removal of a fairy bush in the path of a motorway linking Limerick to Galway would result in road deaths.

“The NRA couldn’t very well demolish the fairy bush then, so they had to vary the road slightly to go around it,” he says. The fairy bush remains in situ behind a protective fence and access is prohibited.

Beliefs Today

Some beliefs are still alive to this day. Jenny Butler, a member of the folkore and ethnology department at UCC, has completed a comparative project of belief in fairies between people in Ireland and Newfoundland to feature as part of an upcoming documentary.

“In Ireland, there’s a common motif about becoming confused in a landscape normally familiar, it’s called ‘being lead astray’ or ‘turned around’ and the fairies have some kind of power to do that. I’ve had a few accounts of that kind of thing,” she says.

“There’s a belief in fairy paths between the forts, they are routes by which fairies travel. I’ve heard contemporary stories about people building on those paths and having bad luck because of it.

“A death in the family following the destruction of a ringfort is another common theme.”

Information for landowners

Farmers seeking to find more information about archaeological antiquities on their land can find details of all mapped monuments and historical sites at National Monuments Service www.archaeology.ie

The site contains maps documenting the entire country. Type in a search for “mapview” and select the area required. Most local authorities have an archaeology department for seeking to add an antiquity to the list of national monuments or those unsure if a structure on their land is listed. Alternatively, the National Monuments Service has regional archaeologists and field advisers available to help. CL