The slipway here is one of those structures so woven into the working life of a harbour that it tends to disappear from view, noticed mainly by the fishermen hauling boats clear of the water and the visitors who nearly trip over its algae-slicked edge. That a slipway should appear on the archaeological record at all might surprise those who associate the discipline with ringforts and standing stones, but slipways of sufficient age or significance earn their place in the inventory of built heritage, speaking quietly about the economics and daily rhythms of coastal communities.

Baltimore itself carries a history that is anything but quiet. The village was devastated in 1631 when Algerian corsairs, operating under the command of a Dungarvan-born pirate named Morat Rais, raided the settlement and carried over a hundred of its inhabitants into slavery in North Africa, an event that left the community so shaken that it took generations to recover any real vitality. The harbour, though, continued to function, shaped and reshaped by the needs of fishing fleets and the traffic between the mainland and the nearby islands of Sherkin and Cape Clear. Slipways were the practical infrastructure of that world, allowing vessels to be launched, landed, and maintained without the need for deep-water quays, and their construction and modification over time can trace the changing fortunes of a fishing port as accurately as any written record.