What is recorded here

Kingstown Bay still holds the ghost of Ballyconry, a lost town of circular stone houses whose foundations ranged from tiny bed chambers to vast assembly halls. Petrie saw enough intact walling in 1837 to believe people had lived there when the coast was busier and the land less hungry for pasture. Today only field clearance cairns and lazy-beds mark the place, as if the town had been broken into parts and scattered across the soil. Yet the name survives, and the sea remains close enough to remind us that a whole neighbourhood once stood where cattle now graze.

Close to shore on S side of Kingstown Bay. Petrie (1972, 253) refers to a 'town of Cahers and circular stone houses' at a place called 'Ballyconry (Baile Chonrigh, i.e. the town of Curigh)'. He then continues: 'They consist of circular foundations of various size, varying from 6 to 50 feet [2-17m] in diameter. The smaller ones appear to have been roofed with stone but there are none of them perfect'. All that is visible today is a large area (E-W 400m, N-S 200m) full of field clearance cairns with lazy-beds running between them, possibly the remains of the site referred to by Petrie. A wedge-tomb lies immediately W (GA022-036----). (O'Flanagan 1927a, Vol. 3, 91-2) 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

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