Promontory fort — coastal in An Teanach

This previously unrecorded site lies at the extreme western end of Annagh Head on the Mullet peninsula in a low lying area of rough grazing. The view from the site is good in all directions. A broad roughly oval shaped headland measuring 125m E-W by 110m N-S is defended by a massive stone wall running across the isthmus. The headland faces S-W and is flanked by a deep chasm to the S-E and shingle beach to the N-W. The interior of the site is very hilly and is strewn with large boulders and outcropping rock. A ruined stone rectangular building measuring 3m by 5m stands on the hilltop in the center of the interior near the World War II lookout post. Other artificial settings of stones are intermittently visible but no discernible pattern car be seen. The wall which defended the promontory has now collapsed and is up to 10m thick in places. It is circa 40m long and is well preserved along the E where its original inner and outer faces are visible. It was originally 3m thick and was built of drystone walling with a rubble core. Long horizontal slabs were placed perpendicular to the wall face at intervals within the core to add strength. This suggests that it was once much higher than its present maximum height of 2m above the outer ground level. The huge amounts of collapsed rubble on either side supports this theory. It varies in height from 1m to 2m outside and stands only two to three courses high inside. There are two entrances into the interior. One lies 25m from the eastern edge and seems to have been recently broken through the wall. It is 5m wide and iscurrently in use by farm machinery. A second one lies to the W of the modern entrance. It is 7.5m in width and was reached via a stone defined pathway 21m long running across the rough ground immediately outside the site. The wall peters out W of a rectangular hut and becomes a steep scarp which runs for a length of 37m along the edge of the shingle beach. This is then replaced by a stone wall 1.2m high and 1.5m wide which runs along the cliff edge to the southwestern point of the headland. The ground outside the main defensive wall undulates and though there are some traces of an artificial earthen bank and several depressions, there are no clear indications of an outer bank or fosse. A small square hut was built within the wall core immediately to the W of this entrance. It is 2m square. To the E of the entrance inside the site lie two subcircular huts. These are conjoined and are 3m in diameter. Their walls have collapsed and stand only three to four courses high (circa 0.4m) and are 1m wide. A fourth hut lies near the western end of the wall. It is rectangular in plan and measures 3.5m by 4m and has a narrow entrance in its south wall. A small circular hut 2m in diameter lies outside this one. A hollow 6m in diameter visible in the wall collapse near the eastern end may be the remains of yet another hut. A bullaun stone (MA009-010008-) lies near a stream outside site but its association with the fort is unclear. This site was surprisingly dismissed by Westropp who considered the walls to be modern (1912, 211). It is possible that he only viewed the site from a distance and did not notice the hut sites or the entrance feature. The site was not marked on any edition of the OS maps, although the bullaun stone appears on both. These descriptions are derived from the MA thesis of Markus Casey 1999 The coastal promontory forts of Ireland. A survey of counties Sligo, Mayo, Galway and Clare. Unpublished MA thesis, National University of Ireland, Galway. Date of upload: 5 December 2018