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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Castle - unclassified

Island, County Mayo, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Castle - unclassified, 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
Island
County
Mayo
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.78680, -8.80537
SMR number
MA093-017002-

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

On the S shoreline of Island Lake, within a complex of earthworks (MA093-017001-) associated with a moated site (MA093-017006-) and Island House, a fortified house (MA093-017003-).
There is no visible trace at ground level of this possible castle which Knox (1911, 332; ‘I’ on his plan) recorded in the early 1900’s. A mound, abutting the S side of the moated site had been dug into revealing the stone foundations of a rectangular building that Knox considered to be 'a stone castle, 52 feet [16m] by 30 feet [9m]…Large, neatly cut quoin stones suggest a late thirteenth- or fourteenth-century date. A strong wall, forming a small bawn enclosed it on two sides.’

Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 1 July 2022

Knox, H.T. 1911 The Croghans and Some Connacht Raths and Cashels. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 41, 93-116, 205-40, 301-42.

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
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