What is recorded here

Indicated, Lissylisheen is a large rectangular bawn on a Clare karst plateau, its crude limestone walls still standing beside Lissylisheen Castle. The sweeping shelf drops into rough pasture, exposing the enclosure to winds from the north through southeast. People may have lived inside those broad walls until the seventeenth century, when the region shifted and the bawn emptied. Size and visibility mark it as a major local defence, not a minor garden border.

At the E edge of a shelf on a gently undulating karst plateau in rough pasture, with commanding views from the N to SE. Enclosing ‘Lissylisheen Castle’ (CL009-001023-) and within a large multiperiod field system (CL009-001001-). This site and its history is described in detail by Ua Cróinín and Breen (see CL009-001023- for their 1995 and 1996 reports ), who concluded that it was no longer occupied by the end of the 17th-century. The site was already in its current condition when Westropp (1899, 369) recorded it. A roughly rectangular bawn (int. dims. 40m NE–SW; 33.7m NW–SE) defined by a double-faced stone wall (Wth 1.4–1.8m; H 1–1.5m) of large, crudely-dressed limestone blocks laid in uneven courses. Ua Cróinín and Breen (1996, 10) observed that this masonry followed ‘a typical late mediaeval North Clare fashion’ and commented that, ‘A similar style of building can be found in the bawn walls at Glensleade (CL005-128001-]), Caisleán a’Mhagaidh/’Cashlaunawogga’ (CL016-011001-) and the garden walls (CL016-032001-) at Lemeneagh.’ The entire length of the SW wall (L 37m) is largely intact, as well as adjoining sections of the NW (L c. 16m) and SE (L c. 17m) walls. Possible footings of the E-end of the NW wall and the footings of a short return of NE wall (overlain by a later field wall) are also traceable. The original entrance is not visible. Westropp (1898-1901, 354-5) commented that this is a notably large bawn among those of Co. Clare, as are also Bohneill (CL024-006002-) and “De Clare’s House” (CL017-056002-). There are several modern house ruins in the bawn environs: one overlying its SE corner, another 4m to the bawn’s NE, and another 35m to its NW. Other structures, enclosures and fields of undetermined date are visible in the surrounding field system (CL009-001001-). The following item has been uploaded: CL009-001037-_01 Ua Cróinín plan (1995) amended on basis of field inspection (1998). Compiled by: by Gearóid Conroy and Conn Herriott Date of upload: 25 July 2022

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