What is recorded here

Half-hidden beside Teampall Bheanáin in County Galway, Cloghan holds a cluster of small stone chambers, one with walls cut from living rock and another rebuilt in three phases before a shelter wall closed around it. They are the kind of place where people may have stored tools, prayed quietly or simply kept rain off a fire, while the larger collapsed chamber nearby loomed like a forgotten hall. The stones do not explain themselves; they wait for someone to imagine the hands that fitted them.

In the vicinity of Teampall Bheanáin (GA119-009001-) are a number of clochans: (a) 5m to NNE (GA119-009002-) is a rectangular structure (L 3m, Wth 1.5m) consisting of two drystone walls and two formed from the natural rock face; (b) c. 50m to NNW (GA119-008----) is a drystone structure which excavations (Manning 1985, 105; B1) revealed was built in three phases. It consisted of a small square building (L/Wth 2.9m ?) with a doorway at E, a window at N, and a later annexe (L 2.7m, Wth 2.2m). Both were subsequently enclosed by a wall acting as a shelter. Excavations produced 17th-C pottery; (c) c. 125m to NW (GA119-007----) is a cairn of collapsed stone (L 12m, Wth 6.8m) with traces of inner wall facing. The OS Letters (O'Flanagan 1927a, Vol. 3, 361) refer to this as a clochan. (Robinson 1980) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. I - West Galway'. Compiled by Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1993). Date of upload: 05 August 2010 This monument was taken into Ownership under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 - National Monument 43.

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