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Fairy rings

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 4,638 ✭✭✭endainoz


    BarryD2 wrote:
    Seems like a good traditional use for such a spot. Hardly doing much extra damage if used that way going back.

    Well it wasn't originally used for bonfires, more for hangings. Anyway cattle still graze around it, I'm genuinely ok with not having fires there anymore. Still celebrate June 23rd elsewhere each year!


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    Under a William III & Mary Act it was an offence to work or play on the Sabbath, fines were imposed at the Local Petty Sessions.

    “1864 25th January (CJ).
    --- Sub-Constables Elliott and Neylon against seven little boys for kicking an Indian rubber football in a field after 3 o’clock p.m. on Sunday the 10th inst., in violation of the Act for the better observance of the Sabbath. – They were let off on paying one-shilling costs each. –

    http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/kilrush_notes_1760_1960/court_sessions1.htm

    Not just the peelers - in the 1880 the local parish priest in the interest of morality - reportedly put an end to dancing, card playing or other shenanigans on Sundays to prevent such things as fornication and other deadly sins ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    We used to have a chicken.

    Trust me the canary would easily last a week or more :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,226 ✭✭✭vincenzolorenzo



    Thats brilliant! I've seen those Ronan Kelly videos before, they're very interesting


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,762 ✭✭✭Rows Grower


    "Very soon we are going to Mars. You wouldn't have been going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn't even be thinking about it."

    Donald Trump, March 13th 2018.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 10,943 ✭✭✭✭Say my name



    It would have been interesting to see.

    I never heard tell of that before. Seemingly only possible with granite rock.
    I guess I won't see one like it now in Ireland anymore either. :rolleyes:

    I'd say there was a fair difference in the IQ of the people who worked on that fort between the millennia.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 568 ✭✭✭mikeymouse




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,063 ✭✭✭riemann



    http://bit.ly/2IukH3o

    Up there any sort of a fine will not be received well. Lets hope it's well into the five figures.

    vXLrnDd.jpg


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,943 ✭✭✭✭Say my name


    riemann wrote: »
    http://bit.ly/2IukH3o

    Up there any sort of a fine will not be received well. Lets hope it's well into the five figures.

    Hopefully it's the forestry company and the landowner fined in equal measure.

    Better still, get them to build the walls again and fire the outside of it to molten rock. :pac:


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,768 ✭✭✭Odelay


    Hopefully it's the forestry company and the landowner fined in equal measure.

    Better still, get them to build the walls again and fire the outside of it to molten rock. :pac:

    I’d say someone is practicing their “surprised” look.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 18,441 ✭✭✭✭_Brian


    It’s something I never heard of.

    Ya have to wonder what is going through some people’s heads.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,739 ✭✭✭oceanman


    _Brian wrote: »
    It’s something I never heard of.

    Ya have to wonder what is going through some people’s heads.
    you have never heard of fairy rings?


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,441 ✭✭✭✭_Brian


    oceanman wrote: »
    you have never heard of fairy rings?

    No, that type of unusual formation, being from Cavan you’d think it would get a mention in school as it’s the only one in Ireland


  • Registered Users Posts: 520 ✭✭✭Stormington


    No such thing as Faeries. They're a Victorian English item introduced to Ireland.

    These fairy rings are more likely grave markers. Not just famine-era either. When people could not bury children on the lake-islands they often buried them with ring markers. Faeries kept children at bay.

    There's another saying that agrees with the majority OP: let the dead rest.


  • Registered Users Posts: 975 ✭✭✭decky1


    God can we even say Fairies now? my grandfather had a sister and as his father and her headed into town one day on the horse and cart he was talking to her for a while but got no reply when he turned around she was gone, he turned around and went back to find her sitting in the ditch and from that day till the day she died her speech was affected and she walked with a limp, they were convinced the Fairies had taken her. I have heard of them but never covering that much land. At the TT in the isle of man the riders go down to a spot where the 'Faries' live and say hello to them for good luck, maybe you could leave them something as a gift for your land.? [No not a bottle of Fairy liquid]


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    No such thing as Faeries. They're a Victorian English item introduced to Ireland.

    These fairy rings are more likely grave markers. Not just famine-era either. When people could not bury children on the lake-islands they often buried them with ring markers. Faeries kept children at bay.

    There's another saying that agrees with the majority OP: let the dead rest.

    The "Faeries" might be English indeed and yet they are only a rough approximation of the mythology of the Sídhe - which Irish folklore describes in detail as a much less human friendly group of other worlders. In Ireland the Sídhe were responsible for amongst other things for stealing children, for changlings, for assigning misfortune where they were slighted and also foretold sídhe withdrawal from the land of men. Traditionally not a bunch to be messed with in the stories told. The 'fairy' rings most often are early burial mounds or the remnants of ring forts - many of which were later used for unconsecrated burials and often associated with the sídhe. Is there really any wonder there is myth and superstition attached to these sites?


  • Registered Users Posts: 633 ✭✭✭PMU


    decky1 wrote: »
    God can we even say Fairies now? my grandfather had a sister and as his father and her headed into town one day on the horse and cart he was talking to her for a while but got no reply when he turned around she was gone, he turned around and went back to find her sitting in the ditch and from that day till the day she died her speech was affected and she walked with a limp, they were convinced the Fairies had taken her. I have heard of them but never covering that much land. At the TT in the isle of man the riders go down to a spot where the 'Faries' live and say hello to them for good luck, maybe you could leave them something as a gift for your land.? [No not a bottle of Fairy liquid]

    nothing to do with her falling out of the cart so


  • Registered Users Posts: 975 ✭✭✭decky1


    PMU wrote: »
    nothing to do with her falling out of the cart so

    hmmm often thought that myself, but ah no blame the fairies, adds a bit more drama to it.:rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,762 ✭✭✭Rows Grower


    "Very soon we are going to Mars. You wouldn't have been going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn't even be thinking about it."

    Donald Trump, March 13th 2018.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,894 ✭✭✭cdgalwegian


    BarryD2 wrote: »
    What do you mean by 'fairy ring'? There are raths or ringforts and these are normally national monuments and protected but they would normally be about 30-50 yards or so in diameter so nowhere near 2+ acres. The only enclosures that size are the large hilltop forts and the like and these are most defitinely protected monuments. But sometimes people refer to fairy rings as places where you get patterns of fungi and sometimes they are places associated with burials. Most townlands had cillíns in them, places where you could bury infants that died during childbirth or very you?ng before baptism etc.

    In general as regards raths and cillíns, they are associated with human habitation and burial respectively and I think that is why the tradition of not disturbing them exists. Just out of respect for those that have gone before us.


    There's a cillín round the corner from me, with a plaque that reads:
    "In loving memory of the little children buried in this and other lisheens in the parish".


    Is a lisheen the same as a cillín?




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  • Registered Users Posts: 234 ✭✭seasidedub


    These are the homes of the Sidhe.

    They were here before us and are an integral part of our island.

    If you interfere with their homes you will incur their wrath. Little things will go wrong, you'll have no luck.

    If you leave them in peace they'll be benevolent towards you and yours.

    Laugh if you choose. I'd never mess with them.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,894 ✭✭✭cdgalwegian


    seasidedub wrote: »
    These are the homes of the Sidhe.

    They were here before us and are an integral part of our island.

    If you interfere with their homes you will incur their wrath. Little things will go wrong, you'll have no luck.

    If you leave them in peace they'll be benevolent towards you and yours.

    Laugh if you choose. I'd never mess with them.


    :confused:
    I only wanted to know if a cillín is the same as a lisheen.





  • Registered Users Posts: 1,562 ✭✭✭Castlekeeper


    There's a cillín round the corner from me, with a plaque that reads:
    "In loving memory of the little children buried in this and other lisheens in the parish".


    Is a lisheen the same as a cillín?



    Not in its origins afaik. A cill would have had a spiritual background whole a lios would have been a habitation.
    Because these ring forts were unfarmed and undisturbed and had spiritual links they became used as unconsecrated burial places for non baptised babies.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,762 ✭✭✭Rows Grower


    :confused:
    I only wanted to know if a cillín is the same as a lisheen.




    Read it again with a deep voice and you won't be able to sleep.

    "Very soon we are going to Mars. You wouldn't have been going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn't even be thinking about it."

    Donald Trump, March 13th 2018.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,655 ✭✭✭ Decker Fierce Palace


    as a teenager i had an air rifle , and hunted regularly in a local field, that had a ring fort in it .

    never went into the fort til one day i spied a rabbit beyond it ,
    i took aim after sneaking inside the fort , I fired and the gun blew its insides out - busted itself
    and scared the crap out of me .

    only time it ever did it even after repair .

    i would leave it alone .

    tjhe fort is on the map someone posted


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,894 ✭✭✭cdgalwegian


    Not in its origins afaik. A cill would have had a spiritual background whole a lios would have been a habitation.
    Because these ring forts were unfarmed and undisturbed and had spiritual links they became used as unconsecrated burial places for non baptised babies.


    This where there seems to be confusion. The BarryD2 post distinguishes between ringforts and fairy rings, whereby the former relates to habitation, the latter to fungal growth (of annual expanding concentric circles, afaik). But the burials relate to fairy rings, and not ringforts.





  • Registered Users Posts: 1,894 ✭✭✭cdgalwegian


    Read it again with a deep voice and you won't be able to sleep.


    :eek:



  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,850 ✭✭✭Stop moaning ffs


    Op. Leave it alone.

    It’s not worth it. I could tell you a hundred stories people would waft away as nonsense but there’s too much evidence and too much bad luck outcomes to dismiss.
    Stay well away


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,894 ✭✭✭cdgalwegian


    DaDumTish wrote: »
    as a teenager i had an air rifle , and hunted regularly in a local field, that had a ring fort in it .

    never went into the fort til one day i spied a rabbit beyond it ,
    i took aim after sneaking inside the fort , I fired and the gun blew its insides out - busted itself
    and scared the crap out of me .

    only time it ever did it even after repair .

    i would leave it alone .

    tjhe fort is on the map someone posted


    Why are people assuming I'm going to do some damage to it, or otherwise interfere with it? :confused:
    I'm just interested in knowing more about the site around the corner from me. I have no interest in superstition, aside from from how it has helped in preserving our national heritage.









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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,762 ✭✭✭Rows Grower


    There's a few ring forts close to where we live they would be in line then with a bigger one a few miles away. The main one is known as a place that some Lord or King ordered to be built around 400AD, they were some men to work with stone in all fairness.

    The other forts are on high ground that can see out to sea but they are only big mounds of earth in a circle with trees planted around them at the top and a bowl shape inside. Over time then other trees grew there. They look like they were well used temporary shelters at one time, probably used by men moving animals.

    The Cillín then is a different story altogether, the main one around here is miles away from any fort and is located on a small hill that is on relatively flat land. They are said to be the burial ground of unbaptised babies as someone else mentioned. There are a few other smaller Cillín's within a 10 mile radius from what I have been told by elderly friends. None of them show any indication of what they are. The history is just passed down from generation to generation.

    "Very soon we are going to Mars. You wouldn't have been going to Mars if my opponent won, that I can tell you. You wouldn't even be thinking about it."

    Donald Trump, March 13th 2018.



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