battery

Embedded two-stage battery, built 1908, having fourteen-bay concrete ground floor building, central courtyard with two-bay single-storey buildings, gun emplacements to the north-west and south-west, three-bay single-storey underground bunker to south, two-bay single-storey building to south-east, and possible entrance to north-east. Now disused. Square-headed openings throughout. Rubble limestone boundary walls.

This defensive feature is typical of the chain of batteries constructed on Bere Island at the beginning of the twentieth century. Distinctive elements of this particular battery include its strategically positioned fourteen-bay block as well as the gun emplacements. The discreet positioning of the battery in the landscape allows it to be unobtrusive. Bere Island was recognized as being of great strategic importance following an attempted French invasion of Ireland in 1796. The British built four Martello towers and a signal tower on the island, as part of a chain of defence along the coast, in anticipation of any further attempts. In 1898 the east end of the island was compulsory purchased by the War Department and fortifications and were built to protect British Dreadnoughts when they were in port. Accommodation for officers and men, along with store houses and other ancillary buildings were also constructed at this time. Additional works were undertaken in the first part of the twentieth century. Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, the deep water port at Bere Island, along with those at Cobh and Lough Swilly remained in British control until 1938.