Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Martello tower
Rine (burren By.), County Clare, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Rine (burren By.)
- County
- Clare
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Finnavarra Battery
- Latest-edition OS map
- Martello Tower
- Coordinates
- 53.14981, -9.13556
- SMR number
- CL002-070----
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1753 "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
Listed as ‘Martello tower’ in the RMP (1996). Situated on Finnavarra Point at the W end of a long narrow peninsula projecting W into Ballyvaughan Bay and built during the Napoleonic Wars (1812-16). A fine squat ovoid tower (diam. c. 17m; H c. 10m) of finely dressed large rectangular limestone blocks standing on a double plinth and tapering inwards gently towards the top of the tower. A rectangular doorway faces E 3.7m above ground level. It has a sloping sillstone to accommodate a ladder, the stone foot-plate of which lies embedded in the ground 3.2m E of the tower. A small circular opening in the lintel of the door may have acted as a murder-hole. According to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage there is a cutstone limestone flat roof with three gun placements at parapet level and a brick vaulted interior roof structure. A roofless and partly robbed-out stone building (L 9.7m N-S; Wth 4.2m; wall T 0.6m) stands 4.5m to ENE. It contains robbed out fireplaces and flues in the N and S gables and some red brick in the walls. (www.buildingsofireland.ie, reg. no. 20400205)
Compiled by: Mary Tunney
Date of upload: 30 November 2015
Nearby in the register
- Ringfort - cashelunder 1 mi
- Ringfort - rathunder 1 mi
- Souterrainunder 1 mi
- House - indeterminate date1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.