What is recorded here

Battery on Scattery Island, County Clare: a D-shaped gun platform with six barrels, a dry moat, and a rear blockhouse, built in the early 1800s to watch the Shannon Estuary. It still stands at the island’s south edge, slight-rised and sea-worn, with two old walls below the northern slope that may have sheltered infantry. In 1811 the island already had eight guns, perhaps in a temporary works before this stone one. The battery is a national monument under state care, preserved for the defence it represented.

One of several batteries erected in the Shannon Estuary in the early 19th century to protect shipping. This battery is situated at the S extremity of Scattery Island on a slight rise and is in good condition. The position is naturally defensive, but there are two walls c. 20m apart at the base of a slope to the N that may have provided a defence for infantry. The battery is of the same layout as most of the others having a semicircular or D-shaped plan surrounded by a dry moat with six guns arranged around the perimeter. The rear of the battery was protected by a rectangular blockhouse built in the moat at the centre of the landward side. Kerrigan (1995, 208) mentions that ‘in 1811 Scattery was noted as having eight guns, perhaps in a temporary battery that preceded the present structure.’ (Kerrigan 1995, 206, 208) This is a national monument in state care, no. 10. Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 19 September 2016 This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 1/1971).

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