Clochan, Cill Mhuirbhigh, Co. Galway

The structure, situated roughly 150 metres north-northeast of the ringfort known as Dún Beag on Inis Mór, is called An Teampall Páganach in local tradition, meaning the Pagan Temple. For a site that may well have early Christian origins, that name carries a certain irony, and a certain mystery.

What survives today is an L-shaped foundation line, its larger facing-stones still holding a rubble core in place, measuring over 3.9 metres in length and nearly a metre in width. A clochan is typically a small dry-stone building, often associated with early monastic settlements, and the Aran Islands are scattered with such structures. This particular example was noted by G.H. Kinahan as far back as 1869, and later by the cartographer and writer Tim Robinson in 1980. Whether the local name reflects a genuine folk memory of pre-Christian use, a later misreading of its age and purpose, or simply the tendency of communities to attach pagan associations to ruins they can no longer explain, is not something the stones themselves can settle.