County: Antrim Site name: DUNSILLY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: T. E. McNeill, Archaeology Department, Queen’s University, Belfast
Site type: Castle - ringwork
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 714027m, N 888893m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.735131, -6.229394
The work, undertaken because of a threat to destroy the motte, was continued from 1974 (Excavations Bulletin, 1974, site 4). The motte top was excavated then, one half removed and the ground beneath excavated; in 1975 the rest of the motte was removed and the area below excavated. The work is now finished and the following summary of the periods can be given.
Pre-Rath A: palisade trench and annular gullies cut in the old ground surface.
Pre-Rath B: charcoal stained earth, filling pre-Rath A gullies, associated with at least two external hearths.
Pre-Rath C: stone-revetted oval house platform (c.5m x 4m) and an external hearth with occupation soil.
Rath I: construction of a 60m diameter rath defined by a single ditch and dumped bank within, c. 1.5m high, partly re-using Pre-Rath C platform as an internal kerb. A clay surface was laid down and an unsuccessful attempt made to dig a souterrain.
Rath II: new clay surface and two slots dug near the edge of the excavation.
Rath III: third clay surface laid, with 7m square sod-walled house built against the inner edge of the bank. Probably lined by a wooden bench but it had no internal hearth or posts.
Post Rath: a turf-line grew over Rath III remains, probably at the edge of a field (presumably) the rest of the rath) because the platform formed by the Rath III house was used for a stack of oats burned immediately before the next period.
Motte Construction: the 4m high motte was built over the Rath III house at the edge of the rath against its bank. It was built by a) levelling the site with a thick layer of clay and boulders, b) digging the ditch and piling the spoil on the inner edge to produce a small “ringwork” including a section of rath bank, c) tipping the earth derived from scarping the bluff on which the rath was built against the stable rath bank until it reached the desired height, d) continuing to tip until the mound had a flat top c.7m in diameter, e) spreading a layer of stones over this surface. The motte was apparently never used, however.
Post-medieval: 18th century and later pottery was dumped from the house, a hollow way developed along the line of part of the rath and motte ditch, and a 19th century summer house was built on the motte.
The site shows no sign of a break in occupation until the post-rath phase. Finds were few, metal and bone being virtually destroyed in the soil. Pottery was confined to souterrain ware until the motte phase, plain until Rath III when the rim began to be decorated.
