Hermitage

The National Monuments Service's description

On an eroding cliff edge at the most westerly point on Inishmurray, incorporated into NE angle of a later square, stone-built enclosure (SL001-007007-).
This small subcircular building or cell (diam. c. 1.8m), with walls (Wth c. 0.8m) of drystone construction, was known traditionally as Trahanareear (Trahan na Righ-fhear or Trahan na Riair or Trahan na Rí-Ghear or Trahan Ó Riain), and also ‘Breadserve’. It has been interpreted as a hermitage, which ‘provided shelter and seclusion for fasting, prayer and penance’ for individual monks at an isolated location away from the bustle of the main monastic complex (SL001-001001-) (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 237).
In the 1990’s it was found to be in a state of collapse -the western part had already succumbed to the eroding cliff- and in 1997 it was fully excavated (licence: 97E0256) in advance of its reconstruction by the OPW at its current location at a safe distance from the cliff edge. The excavators concluded that: ‘in its primary phase, the monument appears to have consisted only of the cell and – immediately before it – a small area of paving which supported an upright timber. Large, undressed stones formed the inner and outer wall faces of the cell. The wall core consisted of medium and large stones in alternating radial and segmental courses (i.e. the stones of each course were all laid either along or across the wall line, so that the wall core formed a compact lattice of large stones). The terminals at either side of an east-facing entrance were formed by small orthostats, which flanked a narrow doorway 0.45 m wide. Most of the primary structure had already fallen into the sea, but the wall remnants could be projected to form a subcircular plan, 1.8 m in diameter, within walls 0.8 m thick. The cell contained deeply stratified layers of mottled sand, but no clearly anthropogenic material (i.e. charcoal, midden material or artefacts) was observed. Unfortunately, from the surviving remnants, one cannot say for certain whether the walls of this building were raised in corbelled courses, like the ‘beehive’ cells within the monastic enclosure (MA001-001001-), or whether it simply consisted of low stone walls with a roof of turf or thatch. The relatively thin walls suggest that the latter is more likely.’ (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 218-219).
The small area of paving (max. dim. c. 2m), located outside the cell, c. 1m E of the entrance, incorporated at its centre a stone-packed post-hole, designed to take an upright timber post (diam. c. 0.2m), most likely a support for a wooden table altar (ibid, 236). At a later date, this was replaced by a stone altar or leacht (SL001-007002-), which was built directly above the stone setting/post hole, and a stone path was laid leading from the N side of the leacht to the doorway of the cell.
Later again, probably in the 17th century, the square enclosure (SL001-007007-) was built to surround the hermitage and the leacht. The excavation found that the hermitage, the leacht and the enclosing wall had all been subjected to successive episodes of rebuilding in the modern period. A cross-slab (SL001-007008-), found in the entrance to the hermitage, appears to have been used to rebuild the doorway in one such reconstruction event (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 227).

Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 23 January 2018

References

O'Sullivan J. and Ó Carragáin T. 2008 Inishmurray: Monks and Pilgrims in an Atlantic Landscape. Volume 1: Archaeological Survey and Excavations 1997-2000. The Collins Press. Cork.