Weir - fish

The National Monuments Service's description

Between Canon Island and Inishloe in the Fergus Estuary. Described by O’Sullivan et al. (2010, Appendix 1, 62) as follows: ‘A fishweir lies on Carrigaflea which is a mudflat and rocky area between Canon Island and Inishloe. It is possible to walk to this weir from Inishloe at very low tide. The mudflat where the weir is located is eroding. The weir consists of upright posts, diagonally placed posts and scarce smaller horizontal posts. The uprights are c. 10cm wide. The fence runs roughly east-west for 44m. The western end of the weir is under the mud. There is no funnel associated with the weir, but this is probably located on the western side, beneath the mud. A small box trench was dug to explore the depth of the posts. It was found that the horizontals only continued for about 10cm beneath the mud, while the upright investigated was over 1m deep. The tip of the upright post was not located.’ The caption to fig. 23 states ‘Canon Island 34 is the remains of a weir (at least 44m long) radiocarbon dated to AD1210-1290. This medieval fish weir is one of the few in Britain and Ireland that is so clearly visually and spatially associated with a medieval ecclesiastical site, Canon Island Augustinian Abbey [CL060-011002- ] … However, even the Boarland Rock fishweirs located several kilometres away could also have been owned and used by the Canon Island Augustinian Abbey’. (O’Sullivan et al. 2010, 41, fig. 23; Appendix 1, 62-3, Canon Island 34)

Compiled by: Mary Tunney

Date of upload: 14 October 2019

References

O'Sullivan, A., Dillon, M., Sands, R., McDermott, C., Shaw, R., Devlin, G. 2010 The Fergus Estuary and Islands: discovering a maritime historic landscape in Co. Clare. Report to the Heritage Council. University College Dublin, School of Archaeology in association with the Discovery Programme.