Signal tower

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated towards the N tip of a flat coastal plain (15m OD), c. 80m W from the coastline to its nearest point, with a small modern housing development located c. 420m to the SSE, and an area of sand dunes c. 900m to the S. The surrounding area consists of unenclosed machair pasture, with a small area of enclosed pasture surrounding the housing development. The site has unobstructed views in all directions. The adjacent signal tower at Knocklane Hill (SL007-057----), located c. 9.6kms to the SW, now survives as a low ruin, and can no longer be seen from this site; the signal tower at Killcologue Point (SL002-062----), located c. 8.25kms to the NE, has been largely demolished, and can no longer be seen from the site. Signal tower site located c. 892m NNE of a wedge tomb (SL005-017----).

An early nineteenth-century two-storey square-plan signal tower, built with roughly coursed rubble masonry (int. dims. 4.25m NE-SW x 4.25m NW-SE). The signal tower consists of the semi-basement level of a signal tower that survives as a shallow square hole\cut lined with rubble stone walls, and a ragged survival of the first few courses (in places) of the former ground floor walls, which retain traces of lime mortar render to the internal faces. Only the internal wall faces and the tops of the surviving walls are now visible. The external wall faces are concealed by the sides of the cut into which the semi-basement level was built, and by a low bank of sand and rubble that surrounds the structure. The corners of the signal tower are aligned to the cardinal directions, with the walls facing NE, SE, SW and NW. The bottom of a square-sectioned vertical drainage channel is present at the N corner of the building. This is believed to have brought rainwater from the roof to storage barrels in the semi-basement.

The signal tower was part of a system of over 80 signal stations constructed by the British Board of Ordnance in the first decade of the 19th century to warn of the approach of a French invasion fleet. Signalling between sites was accomplished using a naval signal post. The system formed a continuous chain from Dublin Bay running clockwise all the way around the coast to Malin Head in County Donegal. It was abandoned by the mid-1810s when the threat of a French invasion diminished (Kerrigan 1995, 157-66).

Compiled by: Stuart Rathbone

Uploaded on 02\11\21

Images:
SL005-201----.01 View from the SE
SL005-201----.02 View from the NW
SL005-201----.03 SW interior
SL005-201----.04 NW oblique view
SL005-201----.05 Plan of site

References

Kerrigan P.M. 1995 Castles and fortifications in Ireland 1485-1945. Cork. The Collins Press.

Rathbone, S. 2020. ‘The Construction, Survival and use of Signal Defensible Guard Houses in Connacht and Ulster’; unpublished PhD Thesis, Institute of Technology, Sligo