"Fairy forts" they may still be called, but we know better. In the 1970s after we entered the Common Market, as it then was, new machinery on the farm made light of certain impediments. Valentine Farrell writes of a friend of his who decided to plough a field that had never in memory had the plough set to it. In that field there was a mound which stood in the way. "We'll dig it out," he said. "I won't," said his driver. "That's a fairy fort." And, Valentine writes, "superstition won - the mound it is still there." (He was writing in 1984.)
"No," he goes on, "I don't believe in fairies. Why, then, am I grateful for superstition? Simply because superstition has helped save these forts for posterity." He knows, of course, that the correct name for such a fort is a rath. They consist of a ditch surrounding an earthen or stone mound and a central area in which the dwelling house stood. This does not survive because it was usually of wood. In the Moynalty area there are or were when he wrote 25.
He takes the example of astronauts, where man has sent into space capsules recording and exemplifying objects of our age. How we live, what our household gods are, so to speak. Not only into space but dug into the local ground. "I regard," writes Valentine, "the so-called fairy forts in our fields as so many time-capsules of other people who were out ancestors." What's the relevance? Well, tomorrow, Sunday August 13th, the 25th Moynalty Steam Threshing Festival is being held, and at the top of the great rolling field stands just such a fort. Some emphasis will be concentrated on it this year.
As to the rest, it is hard to list all the things that will be done, all the loving energy that the people of this parish put into their great annual event. The quotations at the beginning were from Valentine Farrell's remarkable book Not So Much To One Side, referring to the fact that originally Moynalty village was built on one side of the road only. Things have changed, but Valentine Farrell's book is a meticulous classic of local history and the annual festival is one of the great markers to the harvest time of the year.
Baking, cooking of other kinds, rides in pony and traps, memories of other days, stimulation and refreshment for people of every age. Above all, the great machines belching smoke. As for cars, it's the best-stewarded function in Ireland. Moynalty, not far from Kells, Co Meath. Gets going about 2 p.m. But you are welcome from 10 a.m.