Doon, Strake, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Forts
On the southern shore of Clare Island, a narrow finger of land juts out into the Atlantic with sheer cliffs dropping some 25 metres on either side, separating it from the mainland of the island by a deep, precipitous cove that Ordnance Survey maps label 'Ooghaniska'.
The promontory is roughly 200 metres long and no more than 70 metres wide at its broadest point at sea level, and it carries on its summit the remains of a promontory fort, a type of enclosure in which builders used the natural defensive advantages of a headland and reinforced the landward approach with earthworks. What makes this particular example quietly interesting is how much of its apparent architecture turns out, on close inspection, to be the landscape itself pressed into service.
The antiquarian Thomas Johnson Westropp surveyed and drew the fort in detail in 1911, praising what he called 'the skilful adaptation of natural features'. His analysis identified five or six defensive elements, beginning at the landward, north-eastern end with a slightly curved earthen bank, about 20 metres long and nearly 4 metres wide, which he termed 'the clay bank'. It stands up to 2 metres high on its inner face, though only 0.7 metres on the outer, and large boulders protruding from the exterior suggest it was once revetted, that is, faced with stone to stabilise the earthwork. A gap of roughly 0.75 metres near the western end may be where an original entrance once stood. Moving inward across the promontory, features that look like a formal berm and fosse, the narrow ledge and outer ditch typical of defended enclosures, turn out to be largely natural formations that happen to perform the same visual and practical function. Westropp noted this honestly, describing one platform as 'mainly natural'. The occupied summit area measures approximately 59 metres by 20 metres, and at its northern end two well-preserved house structures and a possible hut still stand. By the time of the most recent survey, a broad interior bank that Westropp had recorded running north to south across the summit had disappeared entirely, and the three low interior ledges he sketched are now only intermittently visible.
Reaching the interior of the fort requires crossing a large grassy hollow on the western side of the promontory, then following a steep, narrow path along the cliff edge while skirting a large natural rock outcrop that Westropp, with some drama, called the 'tower of rock'. The ground across the summit is uneven underfoot, the turf growing up to 0.3 metres deep over whatever lies beneath, and the perimeter bank, though still traceable along the eastern side, has eroded considerably on the southern end since Westropp's day.
