What is recorded here

Four oversized lintels still bridge the NNE end of an eight-metre passage hidden inside a Clare cashel, while nettles choke the SSW half. Local tradition names the cave as the forge of Lon Mac Loimhtha, suggesting human hands built or shaped a dwelling fit for myth. The displaced stone at the rounded entrance and loose floor debris imply the passage has been entered, altered or abandoned rather than simply forgotten.

In the NW of a cashel (CL010-064035-), 4m inside the cashel entrance. This Man-made underground passage (min. L 8m; Wth 0.9-1.35m; D 0.5-0.9m) is orientated NNE-SSW. The Man-made underground passage’s roof is intact near the NNE end (L 2.6m), with four roof lintels visible. Westropp (1896, 365) recorded these lintels as measuring ‘six feet’ [c. 1.83m] in length. A further displaced lintel covers the rounded NNE end of the passage, where loose stones are visible on the Man-made underground passage floor. Nettles grow in the SSW half of the passage. This Man-made underground passage may be the ‘cave in a rock’ said to be the forge of Lon Mac Loimhtha, the mythological smith of the Tuatha Dé Danann, according to a local folkloric tradition recorded in 1839 in the OS Letters (Comber 1997, 21-23; see also Westropp 1895). Reference: Westropp, T.J. 1895 The Cow Legend of Corofin, Co. Clare. The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 5, 227-229. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy and Conn Herriott Date of upload: 12 May 2023

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