Clochan, Eoghanacht, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Settlement Sites
One of these two ruined structures on Inis Mór carries a local name that hints at something more than simple shelter.
Clochán an Airgid, which translates roughly as the Silver Clochan, sits on a narrow limestone terrace about five hundred metres south-west of the village of Eoghanacht, and the story behind that name, whatever it once was, appears to have been lost. A clochan is a small dry-stone building, typically corbelled, meaning its roof was constructed by layering stones inward and upward until they met at the top without mortar. They are associated with early Christian monastic settlement throughout the west of Ireland, and Inis Mór has more than its share of them.
The two structures here are in very poor condition. The smaller, Clochán an Airgid, is rectangular in plan, measuring roughly 3.6 metres by 2.9 metres externally. Its roof has collapsed entirely into the interior, taking much of the walling with it, leaving what is described as a featureless ruin. Immediately to the north sits a larger oval structure, 6.1 metres by 5.1 metres, where some of the original corbels survive intact at the south-west corner, giving a fragmentary sense of how the roof once worked. The interior of this one, too, is choked with collapsed material. Both structures sit on the same limestone shelf, their proximity suggesting they may have functioned together, perhaps as part of a small monastic enclosure or a seasonal settlement, though the physical evidence that might have answered that question is now largely buried under its own debris.