House - 16th/17th century

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on the boundary of a limestone pavement and wet grassland, c. 30m E of Cabhail Tighe Breac (CL009-001009-), the 16th-century law school of the O’Davorens. A rectangular building (int. dims. 9.6m N-S; 6.2m E-W) constructed of impressively large drystone masonry walls (T 0.9m) and using some natural rock faces along the S wall and E gable. The façade of this building and Cabhail Tighe Breac itself face N to a glacial depression. Excavation in 2007 (FitzPatrick and Clutterbuck 2010, 31-3) revealed several phases of activity. The frequent renewal of metalled surfaces to assist traffic in and out showed that the building saw continuous use after construction. The only cut stone found was a punch-dressed spudstone of late medieval/early modern type. According to Clutterbuck and FitzPatrick (2013, 24) ‘Light industrial or craft activity, possibly the preparation of hides, took place here during the late 15th to the 17th centuries, involving the use of lithic tools, among them shale axe-heads, chert and shale flakes scrapers and possible borers. The tools, potentially spanning more than a millennium, had already been recycled, broken and abraded prior to their deposition and they represent ‘collected’ implements rather than an in situ culturally cohesive concentration of lithics from a single tradition.’ There was no evidence of domestic use.

Compiled by: Mary Tunney

Date of upload: 10 February 2016

References

Clutterbuck, R. and FitzPatrick, E. 2013 Cahermacnaghten. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2010: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 24-5, No. 88. Dublin. Wordwell.

FitzPatrick, E. and Clutterbuck, R. 2010 Cahermacnaghten. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2007: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 31-3, No. 150. Dublin. Wordwell.