1993:108 - GALWAY: St James' Church, Gleninagh Heights, Galway

Excavations were carried out in advance of conservation work to the site as part of a FÁS project.

Prior to excavation, the church consisted of a badly damaged ruin which had become used as a dumping ground. The eastern end was the church proper and the western building may have related to a post-medieval phase, possibly when a family vault was inserted. The arches of the western building were built on plank centering and a pair of nib holes were present.

Cutting 1
Cutting 1 was made outside the north wall where there was a low lying area. It was hoped to find evidence of a doorway. On excavation the threshold of a late doorway of 16th/early 17th-century date was found. The eastern side of the jamb with a chamfered edge and triangular stop was found to survive in situ. The western stop of the doorway had been removed in a 19th-century rebuilding of part of the wall but a bedding of lime mortar with oyster shells included in it was found in situ. The original threshold had survived in situ.

The removal of rubble and two 19th-century sets of railings which had subdivided the length of the church into three compartments (each with a 19th-century monument) led to the discovery of part of the wide, semi-pointed head of the north doorway. The removal of fallen stonework from the inside of the eastern gable revealed the collapsed stones of a soffit-rib from the rear-arch of a window. Interestingly, this rear-arch had been fitted to the reveal of a window of late 16th/early 17th-century date with both heavy and light sparrow pocked tooling. The rear-arch had carefully worked diagonal tooling of 12th- or 13th-century type. One of the stones had a small mason’s mark consisting of a cross. Evidence of reworking (for its later refitting in the 16th/17th-century window) occurred on some of the jointed surfaces of the stones of this soffit-rib.

The early date of these stones was confirmed when a fragment of a window-head consisting of about half of its original size was found in the late rebuilding of the east gable.

Cutting 2
Cutting 2 was made outside the east wall of the church. A description of the church in the Ordnance Survey Letters of 1838 (O’Donovan et al) makes it clear that the middle of the east gable had fallen by the 1830s. However, it had obviously been rebuilt, though not to its full thickness throughout, at a later date in the 19th century. The two corners had remained to some height but the upper portion of the centre of the wall had been rebuilt. During this 19th-century rebuilding the upper portion of the middle of the wall had been set inwards somewhat by some 0.2m–0.22m. The original sill of the late medieval window had also been pulled inwards in line with this and had been partly built upon so that only one of the two lights of the window was used. A crudely built rubble window was constructed over one half of the sill. Included in this rebuilding were some worked stones including some fragments of 16th to 17th-century coping stones from the gable and some fragments of the 12th to 13th-century rear-arch. There is some evidence to suggest that the building of this crude window belonged to an early 19th-century phase when the building was apparently reused for domestic purposes. A large three-pronged cabbage fork and part of the lid of a cast-iron pot or flat oven, a door hasp and large quantities of periwinkle and oyster shells probably relate to this phase. Later in the 19th century from the 1860s or 1880s onwards one large box tomb, one partly free-standing tomb and one limestone cross were erected and the church was divided into three segments.

The exterior of the east gable was excavated and was found to preserve the original corners of the church and its later rebuilt central portion. At a deeper level the entire thickness of the wall remained intact.

The area produced 12th to 13th-century stonework, late 16th to 17th-century fragments of the east window as well as modern glass pipe-stem fragments and pottery. Finds from the excavations included stonework of both main building phases 12th to 13th and 16th to 17th centuries) including late medieval kneeler stones, coping and a socketed gable finial which originally contained a gable-cross. One fragment of the 16th to 17th-century window had been carved (probably in the 19th century) with a simple Latin cross when it was reused as a grave marker. The stones of the soffit lining of the 16th to 17th-century window were also found, mostly in a very fragmentary condition. The 12th to 13th-century soffit rib (or edging to the rear-arch) was found in ten separate pieces. The mullion of the 16th to 17th-century east window as well as parts of its hood, stepped stops, spandrels and side stones were also recovered. A portion of an octagonal shaft of a 16th to 17th-century “market cross” of a type commonly found in Counties Galway, Roscommon and Clare, was also found reused as a grave marker.

Other finds included quern stones, some of which were decorated with crosses composed of arcs of circles (see also the Dysart, Cummeen, Co. Roscommon summary, No. 193, Excavations, 1993) These were of late medieval to post-medieval date. Some post-medieval and modern pottery, 19th to 20th-century clay pipes, three 19th-century padlocks and a stone mason’s chisel were also found.