School: Rashina, Athlone
- Location:
- Ros Eidhneach, Co. Uíbh Fhailí
- Teacher: S. Ó Cinnéide
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0810, Page 222
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Rashina, Athlone
- XML Page 222
- XML “Fairy Forts”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- Fairy Forts
There are a great many fairy forts in this district. They go by the name fort or liss. There is a fort in the townland of Straduff in the farm of Mr. John Egan, and there is also a fort in the land of Mr. Francis Connor, Rashina and there is another in the lands of Mr. James Claffey in Cooldorrough. They are all circular in shape. In Lackagh on the farm of Mr. Patrick Kennedy there is a fort. The whitethorns that grow around it are so old as to be falling from age.
A man once caught a leprechaun in it, and of course demanded the crock of gold. The leprechaun said if he let him go he would put a stick in the ground exactly over the treasure. Next day when the man came to the place sticks were everywhere to be seen, so he could not tell under which the gold was.
There is a dyke, a mound and a ring of whitethorns surrounding each fort. They are supposed to have been burial grounds of the De Dannans. Fairy people are supposed to live in them. The owners of the land never interfere with them. It is believed if a person cut any of the bushes he would be likely to get blood poison from a prick.
