Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Souterrain
Knockans Upper, County Clare, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Knockans Upper
- County
- Clare
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Latest-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Coordinates
- 53.02265, -9.04250
- SMR number
- CL010-064082-
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
In the NW of a cashel (CL010-064035-), 4m inside the cashel entrance. This souterrain (min. L 8m; Wth 0.9-1.35m; D 0.5-0.9m) is orientated NNE-SSW. The souterrain’s roof is intact near the NNE end (L 2.6m), with four roof lintels visible. Westropp (1896, 365) recorded these lintels as measuring ‘six feet’ [c. 1.83m] in length. A further displaced lintel covers the rounded NNE end of the passage, where loose stones are visible on the souterrain floor. Nettles grow in the SSW half of the passage. This souterrain may be the ‘cave in a rock’ said to be the forge of Lon Mac Loimhtha, the mythological smith of the Tuatha Dé Danann, according to a local folkloric tradition recorded in 1839 in the OS Letters (Comber 1997, 21-23; see also Westropp 1895).
Reference: Westropp, T.J. 1895 The Cow Legend of Corofin, Co. Clare. The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 5, 227-229.
Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy and Conn Herriott
Date of upload: 12 May 2023
References
Comber, M. (ed.) 1997 The antiquities of County Clare: John O’Donovan and Eugene Curry: Ordnance Survey Letters 1839. Clasp Press. Ennis.
Westropp, T.J. 1896 Prehistoric stone forts of northern Clare, parts I & II. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries 26, 142-58, 362-9.
Nearby in the register
- Ringfort - cashelunder 1 mi
- Cistunder 1 mi
- Cairn - burial cairnunder 1 mi
- Enclosureunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.