Enclosure

The National Monuments Service's description

Located on a cliff-edge, abutting a hermitage (SL001-007001-), and enclosing a leacht (SL001-007002-), with another possible leacht (SL001-00700) 2m to S.
This small complex of monuments was subject to erosion and in danger of collapse at the eroding cliff edge; it was fully excavated (licence: 97E0256) in 1997 in advance of reconstruction by the OPW at a safe distance from the cliff-edge (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 216-239).
Prior to excavation, the small square enclosure (4.1m N−S; 4m E−W), defined by a drystone wall (Wth 0.65-1m; H 0.65-0.8m), with an entrance gap (Wth 0.5m) on the S side, was ‘still partly upstanding but with some loss to erosion on the western or seaward side.’ (O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin 2008, 177, 226). The excavation revealed that the enclosure post-dated the hermitage (SL001-007001-) and the leacht (SL001-007002-), and that the enclosing wall had undergone successive episodes of rebuilding, summarised by O’Sullivan and Ó Carragáin (2008, 177, 226) as follows: ‘The upper part was of loosely arranged random rubble, but on dismantling the wall, the lower or basal courses were found to consist of more regular stones, laid in even courses, which formed inner and outer faces with a core of small rubble chips and loose sand. A narrow, south-facing opening in the wall was flanked by low orthostats or jambs. A fragment of a small, green glass vessel with everted rim was found within the base of the wall core at the north side; further fragments were found within an adjacent peaty loam deposit at the foot of the inner wall face. The glass bottle fragments are remains of a late 17th-century apothecary’s bottle and attest that the enclosure – and possibly the leacht – was rebuilt in the early modern period.’

Date of upload: 25 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.