Country diary: To visit a fairy fort is a step back in time | Mary Montague

Drumkeen, County Fermanagh: This area is peppered with medieval fort remains; this rather modest one I've known for many yearsIn the summers of my childhood, you could hear a corncrake ratcheting from the hay meadow below this hill. Now that meadow is a housing estate. Where I'm standing, however, has scarcely changed. The traditional stone gateposts may have slumped a little, but even in those days their caps were long gone. I'm in Drumkeen, a townland near the border of south-west Northern Ireland. Townlands are a small land division of Gaelic origin. The term's usage survives in part because of the loyalty that townlands inspire - often above that of parish or county.I'm on my way to a fairy fort - the remains of a ringfort, or rath, which mostly date from the medieval period. They're circular earthen structures, comprising a raised bank behind a shallow ditch, and usually surrounded by trees. Raths enclosed a settlement, and may have protected people and livestock against raids by neighbouring clans. Fermanagh is full of them, perched atop the county's many drumlins. Some, like those in the nearby townlands of Monavreece and Letterboy, are bivallate - that is, they have two raised banks, one inside the other. Letterboy's rath is huge. You could drive teams of horses between its ramparts and hold a hundred head of cattle within. Continue reading...