Crannog

The National Monuments Service's description

Described by O'Sullivan (2004, 115-6) as following; 'Located in a small wet hollow, apparently formerly a small lake (c.250m N/S, 500m E/W) on a tributary of the River Brosna. The site is located 15-20m from the original gently sloping shoreline to the south, and 60-70m to the base of a steep esker (which runs east-west) to the north. This appears to be an early medieval crannóg (with adjacent ringfort) occupied alongside a significant early medieval routeway running east/west along the esker. The crannóg was probably occupied in the tenth century and eleventh century AD.
The crannóg was built of a cairn (diam. 17m; H 1.5m) of stones, earth and timber in marshy ground at base of steep esker, probably occupied between c.AD 950-1200 (contemporary with Ballinderry no. 1, which is situated 16km to west). The site was destroyed during modern land reclamation and was partly excavated by Cormac Bourke in the 1980s (Bourke 1986, 40; Bourke 1987, 37). The crannog was built on a wooden substructure on the underlying peat, of a platform of substantial trunks, across which were laid light timbers and brushwood, interlocked by notches. This was covered with sub-structural layers of clay, peat and stones, buttressed by heavy timbers at the edge. The occupation surface may be represented by an organic, midden layer found in different areas of the site. A possible house on the site was evident in a hearth set on a flat stone and two arcs of oak stakes (possibly remains o f a wattle wall) from a subcircular structure 6x4m in diameter. The occupation layer appears to have been covered by a layer of red/orange soil, interpreted as the burnt remains of a house. Otherwise, the occupation layer was sealed under a buff-tan clay, incorporating charcoal, crucible fragments, pieces of slag and a possible furnace, but no structures were found in this upper layer. The site was enclosed within an irregular palisade, including a cleft oak palisade on the east side (including two rows of planks with horizontals lying between) and an irregular roundwood post and plank palisade (with scatters of roundwood outside it) on the west. Some bone objects and comb fragments, datable to the tenth century AD, were found in association with this palisade, probably dating its construction to c.AD 950. Finds from the machine disturbed layers in the middle and edge of the site included a hoard of tenth-century Anglo-Saxon pennies (ranging AD 924-55, probably deposited c.AD 950), 20 bronze stick pins, a square-sectioned whetstone with copper-alloy fittings (probably a ceremonial scepter). Finds from outside the palisade included two quemstones, a wooden bucket stave, wooden staves from a small waisted vessel, fragments of leather, a double-sided comb, a shaft-hole iron axe, an iron pan or ladle. A great quantity o f animal bone (including cattle, sheep, pig, goat, horse, red-deer, hare and fox) was also found outside the palisade. Towards the end of the site’s life-history (possibly after a period of abandonment as indicated by the rotten palisade planks), the palisade on the east and southeast was mantled under a layer of stones and the mound mantled under a sterile layer of clay. This uppermost layer produced late twelfth-century green-glazed pottery sherds, an eleventh to twelfth century stirrup ring, a ring brooch, a copper alloy plaque and cast crouching animal (twelfth century date) and a fine jet cross of eleventh to twelfth century date, found in peat to the west of the site'.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by Aidan O'Sullivan.

Date of upload: 10 March 2017

References

O'Sullivan, A. 2004 The social and ideological roles of crannogs in early medieval Ireland. Unpublished PhD thesis. Department of History, NUI Maynooth.

Bourke, C. 1986 Newtownlow. In C. Cotter (ed.), Excavations 1985: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 40. Dublin. Wordwell.

Bourke, C. 1987 Newtownlow. In C. Cotter (ed.), Excavations 1986: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 37. Dublin. Wordwell.