In Ulster Folklore, published in 1913, Elizabeth Andrews describes the belief that to cut down a fairy thorn or to harm a fairy's house is certain to bring misfortune. She gives examples from Maghera in County Down, where a turf stack built against a warning was followed by the deaths of four cows.
She then adds: I was told that when a certain fort in Co. Fermanagh was levelled to the ground, misfortune overtook the men who did the work, although they were apparently only labourers, many of them dying suddenly. It was also said that where this fort had stood there were caves or hollows in the ground into which the oxen would fall when ploughing.
She does not name the fort or the person who told her. The hollows are probably the souterrain chambers common under Ulster raths, which fits the usual fairy fort belief. It is one of the few Fermanagh items in her book, and I have placed the pin at a rough county point.
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