Kilkerrin Battery Fortress County Clare |
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Kilkerrin Battery Fortress in County Clare is one of seven such structures around the coast, with its huge moat, outer gun location, gun powder cellars, brick built domed ceilings, ramparts and drawbridges. Napoleon planned on invading Ireland by sailing his fleet up the Shannon Estuary. To foil the plan and deter any invasion of Ireland, the British decided to construct Battery Forts and Martello Towers at strategic points around the Irish coast and Kilkerrin Battery is one of these artillery fortifications. The sale of the necessary land, five acres, took place between the landlord, John Thomas Westropp and John Ross Wright dated 21st March 1811. To accommodate the sale, five tenant farmers in the area were each compensated at a rate of approximately £6 per acre. Work began immediately and it took a 600 strong workforce, stone masons, carpenters, builders and labourers one and a half years to build the fortress. The Kilkerrin Battery is semicircular or D-shaped in plan surrounded by a dry moat with six guns arranged around the curved part of the perimeter, firing out over the broad parapet across the estuary. Two types of stone were used; the limestone in the building was carried by boat from Foynes, about ten miles up the river on the Limerick side. The blue flagstones because of colour and quality were very valuable; these were taken from the foreshores at Moneypoint about three miles down the river on the County Clare side. The stones were carried up the river by boat. The mortar, legend relates, was made from a mixture of ground granite, lime, ash, hotwax and ox-blood. The impressive structures were completed in 1814 and, as it happened, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in Belguim in 1815, thus the Batteries along the Shannon were not needed except for training routines for the soldiers billeted there. Mr. Barney Moloney purchased Kilkerrin for and lands from the state in June 1073 and remained owner up to his death in March 2003. More... |
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