Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Promontory fort - coastal
Cill éinne, County Galway, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Cill éinne
- County
- Galway
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Doocaher
- Latest-edition OS map
- Doocaher
- Coordinates
- 53.10425, -9.68789
- SMR number
- GA119-001----
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
On a sheer cliff-top headland on SW side of Inis Mór. This Nat. Mon. is known locally as Dún Dúcathair. It consists of an irregular boulder-strewn area of limestone pavement (110m by 80m max.) defined to landward (NE) by a massive drystone rampart (L c. 73m, Wth 7.2m, H 3.7m). Both the inner face of the rampart, with three terraces connected by steps, and the buttressed outer face are the result of 19th-C restoration. Traces of an entrance (Wth 2.2m) survive at E end but Westropp, citing Petrie in 1821, states that it 'had a perfect entrance to the west, destroyed ... by a great cliff-fall before 1839' (1914, 333-4). Outside the rampart is a dense band of chevaux-de-frise (Wth 55m max.) and within it are two groups of houses (GA119-001001-, GA119-002----). (O'Flanagan 1927a, Vol. 3, 242-50; Robinson 1986, 37-40)
The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. I - West Galway'. Compiled by Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1993).
Date of upload: 05 August 2010
The monument was taken into Ownership under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 - National Monument 43.
References
O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1927 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Galway collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Typescript in 3 vols. Bray.
Westropp, T.J. 1914 The promontory forts and early remains of the islands of Connacht. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 44, 297-337.
Robinson, T. 1986 Stones of Aran: pilgrimage. Mullingar.
Nearby in the register
- Clochanunder 1 mi
- Clochanunder 1 mi
- Promontory fort - coastalunder 1 mi
- Clochanunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.