Nettle Island — Balloughadalla

In pasture which has been reclaimed from a drained lake, named Lough Dalla on the 1838 OS 6-inch map. The N and E part of the drained lake has been converted to fields of damp pasture, dotted with rushes; to S and W there is an expanse of rough, boggy ground covered with heather, reeds and other bog vegetation. The immediate surrounds of the crannog have been planted with forestry. On the 1838 OS 6-inch map, a roughly circular island (diam. 10-15m), named Nettle Island, is shown in the lake close to the NW shoreline; it is not clear if this represents the crannog, which is larger in diameter. By the time of the 1929 edition the lake had already been drained, and the crannog is not shown. The crannog is evident as a low, grass-grown circular platform or mound (35.6m NW–SE; 35m NE–SW; H 1.5m) with a gently domed profile. It forms a prominent rise of firm ground amidst the surrounding soft, damp pasture. The top of the mound provides a fairly level space, with a very gradual break of slope with the broadly sloping sides. It has a rather uneven surface, with several dips and rises, and a slight depression in the centre. Large stones are exposed in parts around the base of the mound. In parts where the sod cover has eroded, the make-up of the mound is revealed as stony, black peaty soil, with inclusions of burnt stone, charcoal and animal bone (cattle, pig). A field ditch (Wth c. 3m; D c. 2m) on a SE–NW axis clips the S edge of the mound. There are two references to Lough Dalla in the OS Letters (O’Flanagan 1927, 203 (402-408)), which suggest that this crannog may have been of some importance: one reference recounts that Lough Dalla is mentioned in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick, where St. Patrick curses a man who thwarted his efforts to build a church at a ford close to the lake, foretelling that the man’s ‘posterity should be noted with marks of wicked seditions and manslaughter.’ The second reference states that the lake ‘was, we are informed in the Poem of MacFirbis (1417), one of the ‘Bailte Puirt (Chief Residences) of the Hy-Fiachrach.’ Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 7 May 2019