We present an extract from Irish Fairy Forts, the new book by Jo Kerrigan and Richard Mills.
Far more than just a faint echo of the past, Ireland's fairy forts are still vibrantly alive.
The traditions connected to them are so powerful that, even today, people rarely interfere with Irish fairy forts or fairy trees. They aren’t built on; roads curve around them; farmers don’t plough over them
The most numerous ancient remains in Ireland today, numbering up to 50,000 or more, these enigmatic mounds and grassy banks seem to call out to us from an earlier time. So, what are they, who built them and what were they for? And how have so many survived for so long?
Enormous numbers of fairy forts survive across Ireland. Somewhere between 45,000 and 60,000 is a rough estimate, but in all probability there are many more, given the speed with which lush vegetation covers up everything. However, advances in modern technology allow us to scan the landscape (and below it) more and more, and with considerably more accuracy than was possible heretofore, so the figure is likely to increase exponentially as more work is done.
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.
'I remember going out one morning and finding three large perfect circles of mushrooms in a field near us at home,’ recalls Gobnait, who grew up in north Offaly. ‘They were only in that one field, nowhere else. I went home and told my father, and he immediately said, "You didn’t step inside one, did you?" I said no, and he said, relieved, "Oh, that’s good. You might find you were in another place or another time altogether, and never be able to leave it again."’ It’s a widespread belief.
The strong belief, everywhere prevalent even in today’s ultra-modern Ireland, is that fairy forts should always be left alone. On no account are they to be interfered with or damaged in any way. On all sides, you hear warnings and expressions of fear as to what might happen if you were unwise enough to cross swords with Themselves. The Schools Collection, that superb gathering of lore and legends from the 1930s, is crammed with these warnings.
Specific prohibitions vary a little. Some believe you should never enter a fairy fort; others say it is all right to cut hay within their circle, or even graze small flocks there, as long as you do no damage to trees or shrubs.
Elderly Billy, leaning on the pub counter in a country village, twinkles cheerfully. ‘Ah I’d never go to damage a fairy fort. We were always taught never to do that.’ He considers for a moment. ‘But wait now while I remember. There was that winter not long ago when we had the big storm. Well a tree fell from the ráth and lay right across the field. We talked about it, and then my brother said it should be all right to cut it up, now that it was fallen and out of the place itself. He did that, and stacked the wood away, and it’s burning fine in his stove now. So far we haven’t had any repercussions, but that’s because it fell away from the place and was separated from it, d’you see?’
It's also believed that you should leave a share of what you harvest or gather for Themselves, whether it’s putting a tempting little saucer of food outside the kitchen door at night or turning an understanding eye to a cow that has strayed into a fairy fort and returned somehow milked dry.
Everywhere you go, and with everyone you ask, it’s the same story. They may deny all knowledge of fairy forts, but that strictest of old beliefs remains – always show respect, never insult, never invade or damage.
Never fall into the error of thinking that these are simply ‘old ways, old beliefs’ and dismissing them as coming from a foolish age of myth and superstition. Too many have a mistaken confidence these days that science has solved everything, and that older traditions have no place in our world. Not so. The conviction that you should never damage or interfere with a fairy fort is as strong now as ever it was, among all walks of life and in every corner of the land.
'You'd never go to damage a fairy fort, or take stones from it or anything,’ says Breda who runs a busy family hotel and restaurant. ‘Of course you wouldn’t. That would be inviting bad luck, so it would.’
‘Of course I wouldn’t touch one,’ says John, a senior consultant at a huge hospital. ‘I would stand back, admire, honour it if you like, but I would never damage it. It’s just something you don’t do.’ Pressed for a reason, he says simply that he has always known this. ‘I suppose my parents must have passed that belief down to me.’
Paddy, an eminent dentist, concurs. ‘I remember being taken for walks around a local one when we were young, but my father always warned us not to interfere with them or cut anything. They were ancient monuments, he said, and deserving of our respect.’
‘They’re not for us to interfere with,’ insists Peadar Ó Riada, a renowned composer and musician. ‘They come from a different era, and just because we can’t understand them, that doesn’t give us the right to do what we like with them.’
And so on, right to the country folk who live cheek by jowl with these mysterious relics of the past. ‘Damage a fairy fort? Indeed no, and I wouldn’t,’ says Ger, a postman. ‘That would be very bad luck indeed – and bad manners too!’
‘We were always taught never to go inside the neighbouring fairy fort on the farm next to where we grew up,’ says Bríd. ‘The people on whose land it was warned us that it would bring bad fortune if we invaded the territory of Themselves, and we followed their advice. You wouldn’t even pick blackberries inside there!’ And that, from a country girl accustomed to harvesting the hedgerows for their bounty, is saying something.
‘You’d never go to damage a fairy fort, or take stones from it or anything,’ says Breda who runs a busy family hotel and restaurant. ‘Of course you wouldn’t. That would be inviting bad luck, so it would.’
John, a quiet-spoken man managing a garden centre, at first says, when asked, that he knows nothing about fairy forts. Then he pauses. ‘There is one thing I do know, though, and that is I’d never interfere with one. That would be inviting trouble.’
That is the typical reply on all sides today. Some people will disclaim all knowledge and deny they know any stories about fairy forts, but ask them if they would damage it, remove anything, level it if it were in their way, and the answer never changes. No, definitely not. It would be bad luck. Asked then how they know this, and usually they will stop, think for a moment and then say, ‘But that’s the way of it – it always has been.’
Irish Fairy Forts is published by The O'Brien Press
