Clochan, Ballyelly, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
Settlement Sites
Above the 900-foot contour on the Burren uplands of County Clare, the landscape at Ballyelly is stripped back to bare essentials: limestone, sky, and the remnants of a way of life organised around seasonal movement.
What survives here is a clochan, a drystone corbelled structure of the kind once built without mortar, using the natural taper of carefully laid stone to close a roof over a circular floor. This one has largely collapsed, but its footprint, nearly 9.2 metres in diameter, hints at a structure of some substance.
The eastern wall is the most intact section still standing, reaching about 2 metres in height with a wall thickness of 1.9 metres. The entrance lintels survive within it, roughly a metre wide, and there are traces of what may have been a window opening on the western side. The whole structure sits to the north of centre within a large, roughly rectangular enclosure measuring 49 metres on its northeast-southwest axis and 32 metres across, and a small rectangular livestock pen, approximately 5 by 4 metres, is attached to the outer face of the enclosure wall at the south. Together, these elements form part of a wider field system on the terrace, and the site looks out in all directions across the uplands, with Sliabh Eilbhe visible to the south. The area is described as a transhumance and winter grazing zone, meaning it would have been used for moving livestock to upland pasture according to the season, a practice with very deep roots in Irish rural life. The clochan and its associated enclosure would have served that working landscape directly, offering shelter for people and a contained space for animals at an elevation where exposure to wind and weather is considerable.