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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Fortification

Illanee Island, County Mayo, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Fortification, Illanee Island, County Mayo, 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
Illanee Island
County
Mayo
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Illanee
Latest-edition OS map
Illanee
Coordinates
53.96516, -9.18812
SMR number
MA060-010----

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

This enclosure is situated at the SW end of Illanee or Garrison Island, in Lough Cullen c. 250m from its W shore. It consists of an impressive cashel-like monument (26m N-S; c. 24m E-W internally) built with stones bonded in mortar. Much of the mortar has eroded resulting in significant collapse of the enclosing walls in places. A possible two-roomed house is located in the NE quadrant of the enclosure and a small D-shaped hut abuts its SE gable. An entrance at the NW opens onto a rectangular berth for the mooring of boats: this now stands on dry land as the lake level was lowered in 1965. The monument has been identified by Naessens and O’Conor as a possible pre-Norman fortification dating to the eleventh- / twelfth century (2012, 119-121).

Compiled by: Paul Walsh

Date of upload: 18 April 2017

References

Naessens, P. and O'Conor, K. 2012 Pre-Norman fortification in eleventh- and twelfth-century Connacht. In Chateau Gaillard 25, 113-22.

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 Fortification in Mayo All County Mayo records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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