Building, Cahermacon, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Utility Structures

Building, Cahermacon, Co. Clare

Between a roofed working building and a collapsed ruin, this structure at Cahermacon in County Clare passed through its entire functional life within the span of a single Ordnance Survey cycle.

In 1840, when the first edition of the six-inch map recorded the site, it appeared as a roofed rectangular building sitting on the northern half of a natural platform. By 1916, the same mapping programme showed it already unroofed and ruinous, a quiet collapse that left only low walls and an outline.

The building occupies a distinctive geological feature, a roughly rectangular natural platform measuring some 66 metres north to south and 30 metres east to west, which slopes gently southward. The structure itself is modest in scale, with internal dimensions of approximately 9 metres by 5.9 metres, and its walls, between 0.7 and 0.8 metres thick, are built from crudely dressed stone set in mortar. Risteárd Ua Cróinín and Martin Breen, who examined the site for their unpublished survey of the castles and tower-houses of County Clare, dated the masonry style to the late medieval period, though no carved or moulded architectural features survive to sharpen that attribution. The north wall is the best preserved section, standing up to 1.2 metres at its north-west corner, while of the east and west walls only the inner faces remain visible. Immediately to the north lies a second, smaller building, and the platform itself may have been adapted as a bawn, an enclosing defensive wall or yard typically associated with late-medieval tower-houses, which would suggest the whole complex once formed part of a more substantial fortified arrangement.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Building, Cahermacon, Co. Clare. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement