Clochan, Cruach Na Cara, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Settlement Sites
Off the Connemara coast, the small island known as Cruach na Cara, or St Macdara's Island, holds the remains of an early Christian monastic settlement that includes something easy to miss among the rough grass and stone: the low surviving walls of three early medieval dwelling structures, each different in shape, each quietly telling a story about how people once organised a life around faith and isolation.
A clochan is a dry-stone corbelled hut, typically associated with early Irish monasticism, where monks lived in conditions of deliberate austerity. What survives here are not the full domed forms that appear elsewhere in Ireland, but foundations and lower courses, the bones of buildings rather than the buildings themselves.
The three structures sit in the southeastern part of the island, close to the oratory that forms the ceremonial heart of the site. The first, roughly subcircular in plan and measuring approximately 6.6 metres by 5.8 metres, is set into the hillslope about 75 metres northeast of the oratory, a placement that would have given it some natural shelter. Immediately adjacent is a noticeably larger oval structure, around 12 metres by 5 metres, which may have served a communal rather than individual purpose. A third example lies about 50 metres further to the northeast; unlike the others, it is square in plan, roughly 5.5 metres to a side, a detail that sets it apart and raises questions about its date or function relative to its neighbours. Francis Joseph Bigger noted the remains as early as 1896, and the variation in form across such a small cluster is part of what makes them of lasting interest to archaeologists working on early ecclesiastical settlements in the west of Ireland.