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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Souterrain

Mortyclogh, County Clare, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Souterrain, Mortyclogh, County Clare, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Mortyclogh
County
Clare
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.14408, -9.07961
SMR number
CL003-009002-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1753 map "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1753 · Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

In the interior of a large subcircular ringfort (CL003-009----), c. 18m NE of centre. Indicated and named ‘cave’ on the 1842 ed. of the OS 6-inch map but not indicated on the 1915 ed. It is now inaccessible and all that can be discerned is a lintel (traceable Wth 0.9m; T 0.2m; depth of sod cover above 0.2–0.3m) resting on drystone-walling, spanning an ope (Wth 0.8m). The area under the lintel is filled with clay leaving a gap of 0.25m between the top of the fill and the underside of the lintel. A passage (est. L 4m) runs NNE and a shallow depression runs SSW (L c. 1m). In Westropp’s time the souterrain was accessible and he recorded it as ’34 feet 6 inches (10.52m) long, 4 feet 10 inches to 6 feet 5 inches (1.47–1.96m) wide inside, and 2 feet 10 inches (0.86m) at the entrance and 6 feet (1.83m) inside…. [and as having]… a projecting cornice and 12 lintels from 8 inches to 1 foot (0.2–0.3m) thick, and from 21 to 39 inches (0.53–0.99m) wide. [He also recorded] a shallow side recess 1 foot and 4 inches (0.41m) deep and 4 feet 6 inches (1.37m) long [and] a space 2 feet 6 inches (0.76m) deep… [that opened] at the end under the roof, but… [did] not seem to be a passage’ (Westropp 1911, 353).

Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Ros Ó Maoldúin

Date of upload: 15 December 2020

References

Westropp, T.J. 1911 Prehistoric remains (forts and dolmens) in the Burren, Co. Clare (continued). Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 1, 343-67.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Souterrain in Clare All County Clare records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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