By Julian Schmechel
Be Warned!
A
cursory glance at a map of Ireland, will show a country liberally speckled with ancient earthworks and ring forts. We are told by archaeologists, that these, ‘raths’, were defensive structures built by our Neolithic ancestors, to guard against attack. Country people however, have their own, less academic explanation; believing instead, that these mounds are the haunt of the Aos Si, or faery folk; a malevolent and vengeful race, far more ancient than mankind, and one not to be disturbed at any cost. Would you dare to build on the site of an old rath? One man did, and this is his story. Michael Mahon was a self made man, who had accrued bewildering wealth in the construction industry, during Ireland’s brief economic boom in the 1990s. Mahon hadn’t so much welcomed the Celtic Tiger, as had it stuffed and mounted! Bored by the confines of Dublin, and keen to build a property befitting his new found status, Mahon bought eighty acres of land near the Slieve Bloom mountains. Gaining planning permission
had been a simple task, as the acreage was two miles from the nearest village and overlooked by no one. There was only one other long abandoned house, and there had been no family descendants to ever claim it. The Inspection of the land proved that the finest view of the mountains was to be gained from the site of an old and much overgrown ring fort. This, Mahon determined, would be the location of his new house, and connections within the planning department, meant that any objections to building on archaeological grounds, were soon quashed. Clearing of the site commenced in the spring of the year. All building works encounter their share of problems, but the bulldozing of the old rath was a source of considerable frustration to Michael Mahon. Local contractors, engaged to carry out the work, simply failed to appear once they learned exactly what was entailed. An endless list of excuses was offered over the telephone, leading finally, to Mahon bringing in his own plant and workers from Dublin. City men had no such
qualms about levelling the ring fort, but even so, problems abounded. A newly serviced JCB refused utterly to start, the earth moving lorry broke a prop shaft, and after breaching the outer wall of the rath, the site’s only qualified bulldozer driver, was taken ill with a blinding migraine. This malady lasted for days, which was thought strange for a man who had never suffered a headache in his life. Ultimately, Mahon himself was forced to operate the machine; something he hadn’t done since he was a youth working for his father. The rath, beneath its mantel of blackthorn and bramble, was proving to be remarkably obstinate for a simple, earth ringed bank. The bulldozer’s caterpillar tracks slipped and spun in the face of its resistance, as Mahon applied all the power the machine’s engine would permit. More than once, the baffled contractor climbed down from his cab, to investigate the cause of the obstruction, and found his way blocked by nothing but loose earth. Things continued in a frustrating vane, until late one afternoon work came
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