1989:012 - DUNBOY CASTLE, Dunboy, Cork

Fieldwork and limited excavation took place at Dunboy Castle, near Castletownbere, Co. Cork, on 10-13 August, 1989. The work was undertaken by students and funding from Mercer University, of Macon, Georgia, USA, as part of a larger project to examine the archaeological evidence for Elizabethan colonising attempts in Munster, for comparison with other early colonies. One of the goals of the survey was to locate the English earthworks erected for the 1602 siege of Dunboy as depicted in illustrations of the campaign (T. Stafford, Pacata Hibernia, 1633), after an ill-fated Spanish expedition arrived in Munster to help the Earl of Tyrone's rebellion. Unfortunately, none of the earthworks could be located in the short time available, and it is likely that they were destroyed or obscured by extensive 18th- and 19th-century landscaping and agricultural improvements on the estate.

The other goal met with more success. In the 1960s and '70s, Dr D.M. Fahy directed excavations at Dunboy Castle, and his posthumous report was prepared by Margaret Gowen and published in J.C.H.A.S. (vol. 83, 1978). Dr Fahy had been able to locate many changes to the medieval castle made by the Spanish and Irish defenders from December 1601 to its destruction in June 1602, but his death left some elements of the new, Elizabethan defences unexplained. The 1989 excavation opened a small (2m x 3m) test trench to reveal that the wall line identified as a repair to a pre-existing wall was in fact a truncation of the original Elizabethan defences. This new line, which cut off the western bastion, had probably been undertaken as an emergency during the siege, perhaps because of weakness of the western extremity or an insufficient garrison. The replacement wall was 1.2m wide and was traced to a depth of 0.7m. Finds were few; notable were a mason's chisel found within the 1602 wall, and, in the overlying rubble, tobacco pipes from the mid-1600s reoccupation of the site.

The original layout of the Elizabethan defences were found to be a symmetrical polygon typical of Renaissance design, which was no doubt due to the involvement of Spaniards, Italians, and French-trained Irish in the defence of Dunboy. According to the written account, the 16' high stone curtain wall was faced with sod 24' thick. The 1989 excavation and a survey of exposed remains suggest that the earthworks of the later Cromwellian 'star fort' largely reused, with little change, the Elizabethan earthen facing. The 1602 fort at Dunboy may be the first (and only?) truly Renaissance fortification in Ireland that is not of English origin.

Macon, Georgia, USA