Fairy Forts

There are three shown on the 26" ordinance survey map of this district and I know another such map on which there are also three forts. These forts are built on elevated ground and tho' you cannot actually see one of them from another I expect that if a beacon were raised on one fort it could be seen from the other. Patsy Ansbro says that it is always possible to see a signal given in one fort from at least two others.
There is a fort quite near this school. It was on that account that the late Manager Very Rev. Canon Reidy R.I.P. changed the name of the school from Prison to Gleann an Dúin. He thought that it was a more pleasant-sounding name that Prison. This particular fort has been divided by a ditch. It is most unusual to find them interfered with in any way.
Patsy Ausboro told me that when this farm was being divided that the mearing fence happened to be planned across this fort. The workmen refused to dig the sods in the fort. The gent, a man named Barrett came himself and dug the first few sods, this encouraged the men to do the work; but Barrett was in his grave that day twelve months.
There was another fort in the Ran-Park and this Barrett got his men to level it. His herd, a man named O'Neill advised him to let the fort alone. The late Very Reverend Canon Gibbons who was parish priest of Ball some fifty years ago told the people from the altar that they should not interfere with the forts because the people who dwelt within them had their burial places in them too and that they should let the dead rest.
The people call these circular mounds forts now but Patsy says that the "ould" people called them "lios".
Patsy says that there was only one entrance door to these forts and that there was always a person on guard. The door face south. There was also an underground passage used as an escape.
There was such a passage in the fort on Hunt's land in this townland. There was a hole in the middle of the fort and you could jump down into it and go along the underground passage which was lined and roofed with stone. People called Connolly removed these stones to use for building a wall. These people never had any luck afterwards. The passage was low so that a person would have to stoop very low in order to get through it.
Patsy believes that the forts were built by pagan Irish and had no connection with the Danes.
The fairies were pagans and practised witch craft. The Christians hunted them and it is believed they took refuge in the forts. As no body touches these places, as a rule, foxes, cats, rabbits find a secure refuge in them.
A man named Reilly ploughed a fort in Carrowkeel in this parish and in the morning it was all sprinkled with blood.
It was no surprising thing to see lights around the forts. Patsy often saw them when returning late from a wake or dance.

MAGIC BUSH.

There was a bush in Tom Reilly's in this village of Prison which was suppossed to be a magic bush. A near friend of Patsy's bought a set of old pipes for 5/-. He was only a lad then and he used to have the people in the house annoyed rasping at the pipes. They ran him out one evening. He was playing under this white-thorn bush when two little men came round from the back of it and said "Play up Briny".
Briny began to play and the two little men danced and from that day Briny became a famous piper. He went over to London, got married there and brought up his family "on his music". He always had plenty and in the end of his days he returned to Balla bought a house and died happily in Ireland.