Field boundary

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated close to NW-facing sea cliffs in a wind- swept area characterised by small but steep hills and ridges. At number of stretches of old walls were identified protruding from the grassy sward or visible in shallow in peat cuttings (illustrated in Corlett 2001, 12 and pl. 11). The most visible stretch commences in a hollow between two hillocks, c. 13m short of the low earthen embankment that marks the line of the nineteenth-century cliff boundary. The presence of some small indentations in the sward here suggests that the end of the wall may actually have been robbed out to construct the cliff boundary. From here and following a roughly E–W axis, it is traceable intermittently for c. 130m running eastwards from the cliffs into a small valley as a slightly meandering line of small boulders and slabs (Wth c. 0.5m × H c. 0.4m). Some of the latter are set longitudinally, and where the wall is visible in modern peat cuttings it appears to sit on the old mineral subsoil. At its eastern end it peters out close to the edge of a modern peat-cutting. A further short stretch of wall (MA075-023----) of similar character and orientation is also visible c. 105m SE and downslope from this point, where it runs close to a small stream.

The above description is derived from: New Survey of Clare Island. Volume 5: Archaeology. Edited by Paul Gosling, Conleth Manning and John Waddell. (Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. 2007). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated.

Date of upload: 4 December 2018

References

Corlett, C. 2001 Antiquities of West Mayo. Bray. Wordwell.

Gosling, P., Manning, C. and Waddell, J. (eds.) 2007 New Survey of Clare Island, Volume 5: Archaeology. Dublin, Royal Irish Academy.