House - indeterminate date, Noughaval, Co. Clare

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House – indeterminate date, Noughaval, Co. Clare

At Noughaval in County Clare, a grass-covered rectangular structure sits at the base of a slope, its date entirely unknown.

That uncertainty is itself part of what makes it worth attention. The walls are still legible, built from stone, and the south wall is composed of single large slabs, some reaching up to 0.8 metres in length and 1.1 metres in height. On the north side, the outer face has been slowly swallowed by earth washing down from upslope over what must have been a considerable stretch of time, yet the inner wall-face remains visible for two or three courses, rising to about 0.9 metres. Against that inner north wall, a small stone platform, roughly 2 metres by 1.6 metres and just 0.1 metres high, has been built, its purpose unrecorded.

The structure sits within a wider settlement cluster, and its immediate neighbours help place it in a broader landscape even if they cannot date it precisely. About 69 metres to the north-north-east stands the medieval church of Noughaval, set within its graveyard, and some 78 metres to the east lies a house dated to the 16th or 17th century. The unnamed building at the slope's foot is therefore surrounded by features that span several centuries, which only deepens the puzzle of where it fits among them. Its internal dimensions, roughly 9.4 metres east to west and 4 metres north to south, suggest a modest but purposefully constructed space, and the use of large upright slabs in the south wall points to a building technique with deep roots in the west of Ireland, though that alone cannot anchor it to any particular era.

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Pete F
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