Building, Lisduane, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Utility Structures
At the northern end of a hill crest in County Limerick, a low, sod-covered mound sits in reclaimed pasture, unremarkable at first glance.
A few large stones scattered along a field fence are the only other clue that something more substantial once occupied this spot. What stood here was known as Jackson's Turret, a structure once prominent enough to be described as a fine object to the surrounding country, and now so thoroughly reduced that it registers on the archaeological record as little more than a grassy arc roughly fifteen metres across.
Fitzgerald and McGregor, writing in 1826, recorded the turret as the former residence of a Mr. Jackson, already in near-ruin after being struck by lightning at some point before their account was published. The Ordnance Survey Name Books add a detail that lodges in the imagination: a chimney of about fifty feet high, still standing in ruins at the time of survey, which suggests the original building had some height and pretension to it. The family connection to the land runs deeper still. The antiquarian Thomas Westropp, writing in 1906 to 1907, noted that a Miles Jackson was recorded holding land at Lisduane in 1655, placing the Jacksons here in the mid-seventeenth century and suggesting the turret may have been a relatively early post-medieval construction. The commanding views in all directions from the hill crest would have made the site a natural choice for anyone wanting both visibility and a degree of presence in the landscape.
Today the site offers almost nothing architectural to examine. The semi-circular mound is sod-covered, and the scattered stones on the western side of the field fence may or may not be remnants of the original structure. There is no formal access or signage, and the surrounding land is working pasture. Anyone making their way here should expect a quiet, agricultural setting where the interest lies almost entirely in the negative space, in imagining the fifty-foot chimney that once gave this hill its character, and in looking out across the same unobstructed views that made Jackson's Turret, for a time, such a conspicuous landmark.