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Kilroot battery is a searchlight emplacement associated with a First World War coastal battery, located near Carrickfergus in County Antrim. The structure forms part of the extensive defensive infrastructure built along the Irish coast during the Great War to protect against German naval and aerial attack. Searchlight emplacements of this period typically supported gun batteries by illuminating targets at night, enabling gunners to engage enemy vessels or aircraft in darkness.
The monument stands upon bedrock of the Mercia Mudstone Group, dominated by mudstone with interbedded sandstone and limestone deposits of Rhaetian age. This soft geological foundation, common across much of the North Channel coastal plain, would have required careful engineering to support the concrete and metal structures necessary for the searchlight apparatus and its associated machinery.
The emplacement is protected as a scheduled monument by the Historic Environment Division under reference 16589, recognising its significance as evidence of First World War military technology and strategy. Though the searchlight apparatus itself has not survived, the physical remains of the structure document the technological response to modern warfare during the early twentieth century and the vulnerability of Irish ports to enemy action during the conflict.
Kilroot battery. searchlight emplacement associated with ww1 coastal battery is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 16589. View the official record →
Kilroot battery is a searchlight emplacement associated with a First World War coastal battery, located near Carrickfergus in County Antrim. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 16589.
Kilroot battery. searchlight emplacement associated with ww1 coastal battery is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Ni. The official designation reference is 16589.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Kilroot battery. ww1 coastal battery (0 km), Kilroot battery. searchlight emplacement (associated with ww1 coastal battery) (0.2 km), Bishop's house. c17th house & bawn (0.4 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Kilroot battery. searchlight emplacement associated with ww1 coastal battery's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Kilroot battery. searchlight emplacement associated with ww1 coastal battery stands on Mercia Mudstone Group, bedrock that formed in the Rhaetian. The rock here is mudstone, sandstone and limestone.