Field system

The National Monuments Service's description

In the eastern and southern quadrants of the island, later editions of the Ordnance Survey (e.g. 1912) record drystone walls enclosing a regular system of small rectangular fields. These were evidently a product of the planned re-settlement of the island in the 19th century as it matured and prospered. These new dykes replaced an older field system of irregular land parcels which is recorded by the first edition of the Ordnance Survey (1837) and is also concentrated in the south and east. On the margins of this are relics of other early banks – not recorded by the Ordnance Survey – which meander west and north over the otherwise open moorland. At several intervals the older banks are slighted or traversed by later stone dykes. The older field system is generally represented by low banks, up to 2 m wide but seldom more than 0.3 m high, and occasionally faced with large stones. In some instances, only intermittent lines of large stones survive, with no embanked soil present.

The above description is derived from the results of a survey of the archaeological monuments on Inishmurray undertaken in 1997-1999 and published in:

Jerry O’Sullivan and Tomás Ó Carragáin 2008 Inishmurrary. Monks and pilgrims in an Atlantic landscape. Volume 1: Archaeological Survey and Excavations 1997-2000. Cork. The Collins Press.