House - indeterminate date, Croagh, Co. Clare
Co. Clare |
House
At Croagh in County Clare, pressed against the north-eastern wall of an ancient cashel, the overgrown corner of a long-abandoned house quietly refuses to announce itself.
It is easy to overlook, a low bank of stone barely rising above ground level, yet the measurements recorded there tell a precise and oddly poignant story about whoever once sheltered within it.
A cashel is a stone-walled ringfort, the kind of enclosed settlement that dots the Irish countryside in their thousands, most dating from the early medieval period. This particular structure carries the reference CL005-115009-, and it is against its north-eastern perimeter that the house foundations abut, suggesting the building was added at some point after the cashel itself was established, perhaps making use of the existing wall as a ready-made boundary or shelter from the prevailing weather. The house corner that survives extends four metres along its external face in a north-east to south-west alignment, with an internal length of 1.7 metres recorded. The stone bank defining it is 1.2 metres wide and stands between 0.6 and 0.8 metres high, depending on which side you measure from. The date of construction remains entirely unknown. What is clear is that vegetation has long since taken over, softening the masonry into the landscape until the structure reads more as a slight rise in the ground than a wall.
