Promontory fort - coastal

The National Monuments Service's description

This small promontory fort lies at the end of an E facing headland W of Dooega village on Achill Island in an area of rough grazing and tillage. It is overlooked by higher ground inland and the view from the site is good. This site is marked on the OS 1920 edition of the OS maps as 'Dun'. It was briefly described by Westropp (1914a, 305). The promontory is cut off from the mainland by a deep straight fosse ranging from 2m to 3m in depth and measuring 1.5m wide at its base. It is V-shaped and is 7.5m wide at the top. The fosse slopes gently down to the south and has no causeway crossing it. A small path running down and up the sides of the fosse gave access into the interior. Although Westropp described a wall eight feet thick running along the inner face of the fosse the only trace of this is a slight rise to the southeast of the fosse. The interior rises to a point in the centre and measures 12m in diameter. Besides the slight rise it is quite featureless. Sea rocks lying only 6m below the interior to the east of the site suggest thai it may have been larger when the fort was constructed.

These descriptions are derived from the MA thesis of Markus Casey 1999 The coastal promontory forts of Ireland. A survey of counties Sligo, Mayo, Galway and Clare. Unpublished MA thesis, National University of Ireland, Galway.

Date of upload: 5 December 2018

References

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.