by Erich Falconer

Every day, I help families honour the people they love. And over the years, I’ve come to believe that the land remembers us. Hills, trees, and quiet circles of grass, they all hold traces of the people who once stood there.

That’s why Irish Fairy Forts: Portals to the Past by Jo Kerrigan caught my heart. It’s not just a history book. It’s a reminder that Ireland itself breathes memory. The photography by Richard Mills captures this beautifully; mist, moss, and mystery in every frame.

Jo writes about the ringforts that dot our countryside, thousands of them, maybe sixty thousand across Ireland, built in the Iron Age and wrapped in the oldest of stories. The Tuatha Dé Danann, the people of Danu, once roamed these lands before vanishing beneath the earth. Some say they still guard Ireland’s rivers, lakes, and hills. They appear as animals, as wind, as whispers.

And we were warned: never disturb a fort, never cut a whitethorn tree, never forget the unseen that protects what’s sacred.

In her chapters, Jo moves gently between myth and history, and she doesn’t shy away from the heartbreak either. For centuries, families who lost their babies before baptism laid them to rest in quiet places beyond the church walls. Some of those places were old ringforts. Reading that, I stopped for a moment. I thought of the mothers and fathers who wanted only peace for their little ones.

As I read, I found myself drawing parallels with home. My wife is Mexican, and every November she builds an altar for Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Candles, flowers, photos. A welcome for those we’ve lost. In Ireland, we once marked Samhain, our old New Year, when the veil between worlds was thinnest. Different continents, same heartbeat, both about love that endures.

I haven’t yet visited the fairy forts here in Waterford, but I will as soon as I get a quiet morning. I plan to start with the lios at Kilmacleague, near us in Tramore, then visit Ceapach Chuinn, and finally the Knockeen portal tomb, which stands like a doorway itself.

If you ever visit, walk softly. These are places of story and silence.

This book is a rare thing, it opens your eyes and steadies your soul. It makes you proud to live on this island and conscious of how deeply our past lies beneath our feet.

If you want to slip back into that world for a while and believe again, start here:
Order Irish Fairy Forts: Portals to the Past

Beautifully written, beautifully photographed. Thank you Jo Kerrigan and Richard Mills for helping us remember.

Warmy,
Erich Falconer