Ballylaan

38 registered freehold parcels lie mostly in Ballylaan, from 165 m² to 178,903 m² (17.89 ha, 44.21 acres). The dashed line is the townland's boundary. 19 neighbouring parcels touch it.

Download the townland as DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its boundary, parcels and buildings, or as GeoJSON or KML.

No zone of a development plan covers Ballylaan in the national zoning. Outside zoned towns and villages, the county development plan's rural policies apply to each application.

Source: Tailte Éireann and the Department of Housing (MyPlan), national zoning, CC BY 4.0.

• 22 Oct 2025Conditional

  to build a new dwelling house, install a waste water treatment system & all other associated site and ancillary works

  Permission, 1 home · Clare County Council, 25331

• 16 Dec 2021Conditional

  to a) construct front and side extensions b) carry out alterations to existing cottage together with all ancillary site development works and services

  Permission · Clare County Council, 211338

Source: National Planning Applications, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Applicants are not shown.

Designated sites

• Special Protection Area: Cliffs of Moher SPA 004005
• Proposed Natural Heritage Area: Cliffs Of Moher 000026

Recorded monuments

• CL014-010 Promontory fort - coastal
  Description

  In wet pasture on a roughly triangular-shaped promontory (c. 90m E-W; max. 65m N-S) on the landward side of Hag’s Head with sea cliffs and very steep slopes at S, W and N. Labelled ‘Site of Moher Fort’ on both the first (1842) and Cassini (1920) editions of the OS 6-inch map. Partly hachured and labelled ‘Moher Fort (Site of)’ on the OS 25-inch plan (1897). The fort’s name is variously recorded as Mothar Ui Ruis / Mothar Ui Ruain / Mohar-Ui-Ruaidhin / Cahermore in different sources (Comber 1997, 95; Westropp 1905, 359; Cunningham 1980, 71; Jordan 1991, 49). This coastal promontory fort is defined on the seaward side (from S-W-N- ENE) by cliffs with the promontory cut off on the landward side (from ENE-E-S), by a series of three, denuded curvilinear banks with two intervening fosses. These defences have been bisected by a modern stone wall, and are best preserved near the Nedge of the promontory. The innermost bank (Wth 3.5m; H 0.25m) has been reduced to a scarp along the north, is disturbed by a modern wall along the south and is very faintelsewhere. The fosseoutside it is well-defined, steep-sided and flat bottomed (Wth 6m; D 0.55m). The middle bank is also well-defined (H 1.1m; Wth 3.5m) and round-topped. The fosse outside it is shallow (D 0.15m), and flat bottomed (Wth 4.2m). The third, outer bank is only visible intermittently, having been reduced to a scarp near the middle, and there is a well-defined berm (H 1.1m) immediately outside it (combined bank and berm Wth 9m). All the defences have been disturbed by quarrying activities at the N cliff edge, and by a stone wall and a path running through the centre, and there is no trace of an original entrance.    According to Westropp (1905, 359) part of a stone wall surrounding the promontory fort was still standing in 1780, however, much of the promontory fort was levelled and used as material for a signal tower (CL014-010002-) built by the British on the promontory during the Napoleonic Wars. Subsequently, a small World War II lookout post was built beside the signal tower. The Cliffs of Moher, extending N from this promontory, are named after the fort.   Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy and Conn Herriott    Date of upload: 3-10-2025

• CL014-010002 Signal tower
  Description

  Situated on a small promontory approximately 240m E of Hag’s Head. Located on a narrow piece of flat ground with vertical cliffs to the N and steep cliffs to the W (124m OD). Located on the SW end of the Cliffs of Moher at the start of the clifftop walk. The surrounding area consists of partially enclosed rough pasture defined with rubble and drystone boundary walls. Signal tower located c. 100m S of the coastline at its nearest point. Adjacent signals towers in chain located on Inisheer\Inis Oírr (GA120-016----) on the Aran Islands, County Galway, located c. 13.5kms to the NNW, and to the W side of Mutton Island (CL038-071----), located c. 15.9kms to the SSW. This signal tower is c. 3.8 kms NW of a cashel (CL022-002----) located close to the coastline at Cloghaundine just to the W of the town of Liscannor. An early nineteenth-century (c. 1804-5) two-storey square-plan signal tower (approx. ext. dims. 5.85m NE-SW x 5.85m NW-SE), built with roughly coursed rubble with flush squared limestone block-and-start quoins to the corners. There is considerable damage to the corners of the tower at the ground floor level, which has likely significantly weakened the structure; the structure has recently (2020) been enclosed by a protective metal fence to protect the general public. The doorway is located at first floor level of the centre of the NE elevation, and would have been originally accessed via a retractable ladder. The doorway retains part of its cut limestone block-and-start surround and cut stone lintel with keystone; lower sections and stone threshold now removed\collapsed. The doorway is protected by a machicolation over supported by three cut stone corbels. Two small well-constructed windows are located on either side of the first floor doorway. Both these windows have flush cut stone surrounds but both windows are now blocked up with neat stonework. These windows appear to be original features, and represent unique variations to the standard design used at most signal towers. The NE and SW walls feature two square-headed window openings at both ground and first floor levels. On the SW wall the ground floor windows and the NW window on the first floor have been blocked with neat stonework, leaving only the SE first floor window open. A smaller off-centre window is located at the NW part of the attic level. The SE wall is plain and bulges slightly along its length to the centre to house the chimney flue. The E and S corners of the signal tower are protected by bartizans, each supported by three cut stone corbels. Kerrigan established that the signal mast here had been erected and the signal tower completed by 1805 (Kerrigan 1995, 278). Internally, there are square-headed fireplaces to the centre of the SE elevation at ground and first floor levels flanked to either side by square-headed alcoves. The signal tower is not located within an enclosure, but it is sited within a badly eroded promontory fort (CL014-010001-). Immediately SW of the signal tower is the poorly preserved base of a World War II-era lookout post (L.O.P. 47). The signal tower was part of a system of over 80 signal stations constructed by the British Board of Ordnance in the first decade of the nineteenth century to warn of the approach of a French invasion fleet. Signalling between sites was accomplished using a naval signal post. The system formed a continuous chain from Dublin Bay running clockwise all the way around the coast to Malin Head in County Donegal. It was abandoned by the mid-1810s when the threat of a French invasion diminished (Kerrigan 1995, 157-66). Compiled by: Stuart Rathbone Uploaded on: 13/07/2022

Architectural heritage

No building of the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage stands in the townland of Ballylaan.

Designated sites: National Parks and Wildlife Service. Recorded monuments: Sites and Monuments Record, National Monuments Service. Buildings: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Works at or in relation to a recorded monument need two months' written notice to the National Monuments Service (National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994, section 12).

Radon

At the centre of the townland of Ballylaan, about 1 in 10 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home

Landslides

The 1:50,000 map rates the landslide susceptibility here as high, moderately high, moderately low, low, partly inferred.

Terrain model

No LiDAR survey of the Office of Public Works covers the centre of the townland of Ballylaan.

Flooding

The Office of Public Works publishes its flood maps on floodinfo.ie.

Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency, and Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland, both under CC BY 4.0. LiDAR: contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey Ireland & the Office of Public Works) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

No address of the register names Ballylaan with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Clare.

Name

Ballylaan

Area

1,028,297 m² (102.83 ha, 254.1 acres)

Civil parish

Kilmacrehy, and its townlands

Barony

Corcomroe

Electoral division

Ballysteen, the unit of the census

Census 2022

398 people lived in 163 households in the Ballysteen electoral division. 89% of households owned their home. 32% of homes were built since 2001. 7% of dwellings stood vacant on census night, and 41% were holiday homes.

Neighbouring townlands

Ballyherragh, Kilconnell

Placenames

Ballylaan on logainm.ie, the Placenames Database of Ireland

Townlands, civil parishes, baronies and electoral divisions, National Statutory Boundaries, Tailte Éireann, CC BY 4.0. Census 2022, Small Area Population Statistics by electoral division, Central Statistics Office, CC BY 4.0. A townland is the smallest land division of Ireland, and the unit of a rural address. Old registers such as the 1901 and 1911 censuses file it under its civil parish and barony.