Telegraph, signal tower in County Clare (CL014-010002-)

Situated on a small promontory approximately 240m E of Hag’s Head. Located on a narrow piece of flat ground with vertical cliffs to the N and steep cliffs to the W (124m OD). Located on the SW end of the Cliffs of Moher at the start of the clifftop walk. The surrounding area consists of partially enclosed rough pasture defined with rubble and drystone boundary walls. Signal tower located c. 100m S of the coastline at its nearest point. Adjacent signals towers in chain located on Inisheer\Inis Oírr (GA120-016----) on the Aran Islands, County Galway, located c. 13.5kms to the NNW, and to the W side of Mutton Island (CL038-071----), located c. 15.9kms to the SSW. This signal tower is c. 3.8 kms NW of a cashel (CL022-002----) located close to the coastline at Cloghaundine just to the W of the town of Liscannor. An early nineteenth-century (c. 1804-5) two-storey square-plan signal tower (approx. ext. dims. 5.85m NE-SW x 5.85m NW-SE), built with roughly coursed rubble with flush squared limestone block-and-start quoins to the corners. There is considerable damage to the corners of the tower at the ground floor level, which has likely significantly weakened the structure; the structure has recently (2020) been enclosed by a protective metal fence to protect the general public. The doorway is located at first floor level of the centre of the NE elevation, and would have been originally accessed via a retractable ladder. The doorway retains part of its cut limestone block-and-start surround and cut stone lintel with keystone; lower sections and stone threshold now removed\collapsed. The doorway is protected by a machicolation over supported by three cut stone corbels. Two small well-constructed windows are located on either side of the first floor doorway. Both these windows have flush cut stone surrounds but both windows are now blocked up with neat stonework. These windows appear to be original features, and represent unique variations to the standard design used at most signal towers. The NE and SW walls feature two square-headed window openings at both ground and first floor levels. On the SW wall the ground floor windows and the NW window on the first floor have been blocked with neat stonework, leaving only the SE first floor window open. A smaller off-centre window is located at the NW part of the attic level. The SE wall is plain and bulges slightly along its length to the centre to house the chimney flue. The E and S corners of the signal tower are protected by bartizans, each supported by three cut stone corbels. Kerrigan established that the signal mast here had been erected and the signal tower completed by 1805 (Kerrigan 1995, 278). Internally, there are square-headed fireplaces to the centre of the SE elevation at ground and first floor levels flanked to either side by square-headed alcoves. The signal tower is not located within an enclosure, but it is sited within a badly eroded promontory fort (CL014-010001-). Immediately SW of the signal tower is the poorly preserved base of a World War II-era lookout post (L.O.P. 47). The signal tower was part of a system of over 80 signal stations constructed by the British Board of Ordnance in the first decade of the nineteenth century to warn of the approach of a French invasion fleet. Signalling between sites was accomplished using a naval signal post. The system formed a continuous chain from Dublin Bay running clockwise all the way around the coast to Malin Head in County Donegal. It was abandoned by the mid-1810s when the threat of a French invasion diminished (Kerrigan 1995, 157-66).