1972:068 - BALLYGLASS, Mayo

The excavations at Ballyglass, Co. Mayo in 1972 took place in the vicinity of the smaller court tomb in the townland (Ma. 14), which was investigated in 1968. That structure consists of a concave forecourt leading, through a short alley to an oval court which gives access to a two chambered gallery. The gallery had been severely damaged but its ground plan was established by the discovery of stumps of orthostats and sockets. The structure was enclosed in a trapezoidal cairn. The narrow eastern end of the cairn ran under a nearby roadway while the long northern side had been almost entirely destroyed. However the basal layers of a dry-stone wall revetment were uncovered along the southern side of the cairn to the point where it ran under the roadway.

The 1968 excavation produced large numbers of struck flakes of chert and some flint together with over 300 chert artifacts. These were found to be concentrated in two areas- outside the southern revetment and in the northern part of the forecourt area. The discovery of the foundations of a timber house under the large centre-court tomb in Ballyglass (Ma. 13) prompted our return to the site here described in February and March 1972. The excavations were initially concentrated in those areas peripheral to the 1968 cuttings, where finds were densest, and were later extended to re-investigate the earlier cuttings. The 1972 excavations resulted in the discovery of the foundations of two timber structures, one outside the southern revetment of the cairn and the second in the forecourt area. These structures and their environs were fully investigated in July and August 1972.

In 1972 the original topsoil and that redeposited in 1968 was removed from the entire area between the southern revetment of the cairn and the road fence uncovering the pits discovered during the earlier excavation. The leached, grey, charcoal-bearing soil beneath the topsoil was lightly spaded over several times to the level of the 1968 pits and eventually the filled-in wall-slots of a roughly rectangular timber structure encompassing the pits were exposed. This structure lay 1-2m from the revetment and ran roughly parallel to it. The structure, which measured approximately 6.5m E-W by 3m N-S, consisted of a long irregular wall-slot at the south with short slots at the east and west. No wall-slot was found at the north side of the structure nor were there any postholes here either. The wall-slots did not contain postholes but a number of widely separated stakeholes were found along the inner side of the southern wall-slot and there was a concentration of stakeholes inside the east end of the structure. A semi-circle of eight stakeholes, 3m across, located between the western end of the structure and the cairn revetment, is set with its open end facing towards the revetment. No further stakeholes were found inside the line of the revetment.

The grey charcoal-bearing soil which covered the structures outside the revetment and the pits revealed in 1968, extended under the cairn but its precise limits were difficult to define. It varied from 1cm to 10cm in thickness and overlay a natural daub.

The grey soil did not cover the structure found in the forecourt area, part of which had been excavated in 1968. Removal of the topsoil revealed a curved wall-slot with an ashy grey fill. Meeting this at its eastern end and extending 75cm beyond it to the south was a second slot with a fill barely distinguishable from the natural daub and with some small stones protruding. This straight wall-slot, approximately 5.5m long ran roughly parallel to the northern arm of the forecourt, in a north-south, direction and was 1-2m from it. The curved wall-slot ran westwards for about 4.5m where it curved northwards for about 2m. Some 3m northwards from this was a pit (or posthole) which appears to have marked this end of the structure. The distance from this pit to the northern end of the straight wall was about 2.5m. A number of stake holes and small postholes were found in both wall-slots while within the structure were further stakeholes and some shallow pits.

A few Neolithic artifacts of flint and chert were found in the wall-slots of both structures and some small featureless fragments of pottery came from the wall of the structure outside the cairn revetment.

While the nature of the two structures is as yet unclear the large numbers of artifacts and chippings found in the vicinity of both would suggest that they may have been workshops rather than domestic dwellings.

A series of trenches dug into the natural daub were uncovered in the precincts of both structures. The nature or date of these is unknown but they do not compare with the cultivation trenches found during the excavation of the centre-court tomb (Ma. 13) in the same townland.