Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric fort in Clew Bay which has been described as “very significant”.
As The Irish Independent reports, the fort has been identified on Collanmore island, Co Mayo, which was once one of the Glenans Franco-Irish sail training school bases.
Archaeologist Michael Gibbons says that initial surveys suggest the island was used for a fort dating from the late Bronze Age, and it is comparable to Inis Mór’s Dun Aengus.
Several large ramparts across the tidal isthmus linking the island to the shoreline are believed to have been constructed as part of the fort.
The set of double ramparts are “most likely to be late Bronze Age in date, dating between 1100-900 BC”, Gibbons says, and had ben covered in seaweed..
The outer rampart was known to local residents, but they didn’t realise its significance, he says.
The scale of the double ramparts indicates the island was of major strategic importance, and similar ramparts can be seen at other coastal and lake promontory forts on the west coast, he says.
Nearest examples can be found on Lough Fee, north of Newport,Co Mayo, where there is a large lake promontory fort, and a large promontory fort on Lake Carra, Gibbons says.
The late Bronze Age hillforts are the largest monuments built in Ireland, linked to “warlord dominated societies”, he says.
The Clew Bay discovery has been reported to the National Monuments Service.
A possible “burial cist” or stone-lined grave on the coastline opposite north Connemara’s Omey island has also been reported, after it was found by Carmel Hannon-Madden on the beach at Fountain Hill townland.
The cist is made up of an arc of six stones opening to the west, but its location is exposed to swells.
Read The Irish Independent here