1993:193 - DYSART CHURCH AND GRAVEYARD, Dysart, Roscommon

Excavations took place at Dysart Church, Cummeen, Co. Roscommon, in advance of conservation work to the site. The complex incorporates elements of an Early Christian Period bank and (infilled) ditch which is now overlaid by a modern rectilinear boundary wall.

One of the finds—a portion of lignite bracelet, coupled with the place name Dysart—would seem to point towards an Early Christian Period origin for the site.

The church has a well-preserved 12th-century round-topped window in its southern wall and as a result of the excavations (in Cutting 1) a coeval south door is now also in evidence. One small single-light window in the north wall opposite also bore portions of 12th-century stonework with diagonal tooling, and portions of that wall also remained intact.

The eastern gable is predominantly a rebuilding of late 15th- to early 16th-century date and the eastern corner of the north wall attached to this gable is also partially of this date. A line of ashlar and a marked batter to the base of the wall mark the limits of the late medieval phase here.

The western gable has a 16th- to 17th-century doorway and a window which might be slightly earlier. When the west gable was provided with the late door, the western end of the church was also cut off by a wall which rose to the full height of the interior of the church. Joist holes for an insertion of a post-medieval floor were in evidence in the interior of the west gable until 1992 when a large section of it fell. It has since been rebuilt but without evidence for joist holes.

When the west wall was inserted to form a priest's house at the west end of the church, a toilet 'turret' of two storeys to which there was access from the first floor of the priest's house was added to the exterior of the north wall. This was provided with a lintelled chute at its base through which waste material could be removed. It also had a uni-faceted sloping stone roof which sloped towards the north.

The insertion of the interior western wall into the church caused the partial blocking of the 12th-century south door which then went out of use. This necessitated the provision of a further doorway and one was made in the north wall. The north wall doorway was also provided with a porch on the outside to which there was external access by way of a further doorway. Evidence for this doorway in the porch and the basal courses of the side walls of this porch were found in excavation of Cuttings 3A and 3B.

A single-light ogee-headed window in each of the east ends of the northern and southern walls lit the area of the altar. These may be dated to the late 15th or early 16th centuries. The single light window in the west gable is also an uncusped ogee-headed one of similar form.

The toilet turret was probably provided with a narrow ope in its western wall where nothing but a jagged breach survived prior to conservation work and an ope has been reinstated here.

The building attached to the exterior of the south-eastern end of the chancel was originally accessed from the chancel itself and had a 15th- to 16th-century single-light window immediately above the doorway which post-dated the doorway. The room itself, which may have been a sacristy, had deeply splayed embrasures to its windows. Two opes at least, those in the northern and southern walls, had beads which were built over split planks which acted as supports. The building had been rebuilt at a later date and incorporated late medieval window and door fragments in its fabric. Cutting 4 showed however that the walls of the building were of some considerable depth and that, though there was some obvious post-medieval remodelling of the above ground features, the lower courses of the walling were much earlier.

Cutting 1
Cutting 1 was made outside on a gap in the south wall. Three fragments of a 12th/13th-century doorway head had been found in the graveyard and these, along with two further early T-shaped stones (one of which had been re-tooled in the 17th century) seemed to suggest the presence of a doorway of 12th/early 13th-century date. A further fragment of ashlar with such tooling had been incorporated as a quoin in the east gable. It was hoped to establish the position of this doorway through excavation in the vicinity of the gap in the south wall. The excavation of Cutting 1 across the line of this gap did in fact confirm the presence of a doorway which proved to be stylistically early and of 12th rather than 13th-century date. The base of the doorway was found to have survived to a maximum of three courses in height and had wide chamfered and projecting string bases and was of two orders.

The reveal of the doorway had two phases of blocking, one probably 19th century and it was probably also blocked up in the late 16th/early 17th century when the west end of the church was cut off by a wall which supported a post-medieval 'priest's house'.

Cutting 2
Cutting 2, at right angles to Cutting 1, produced the footings of a wall which divided off the western end of the church and was of 17th-century date. It had some incorporated ashlar in it, including a 12th-century stone with diagonal tooling and a split stone with 15th-/16th-century tooling on it. Prior to excavation a break in slope was the only evidence for this wall. The wall itself was built in the 17th century and was contemporary with the excavated toilet turret and the 17th-century doorway in the western wall of the church.

Cuttings 3, 3a and 3b
Cuttings 3, 3a and 3b were made in a broken area along the line and outside the north wall. One of the slit windows in the north wall was an ogee-headed one of late medieval 15th-/16th-century date. Another had at least one diagonally-tooled section to its embrasure and its narrow splay suggested an early date for it. The dates of other sections of the north wall need to be clarified. Excavation produced the foundations of a late doorway with its threshold and some of its lowermost stonework in situ. The door was of late date and was probably contemporary with the late 16th/17th-century west door. The doorway leads to a small building which was built onto the north wall of the church.

Cuttings 3a and 3b revealed the line of the side walls of this building which had been partly destroyed by bulldozing some 20 to 25 years ago. The building had portions of two of its end walls surviving. It seems likely that the building represented was a late one, probably a porch built in the late 16th/17th century when the 12th-century south doorway was out of use and probably blocked up. The building found in Cuttings 3, 3a and 3b also had the threshold of a further door in its eastern sidewall. It seems likely that this building was a late 16th-/17th-century porch built to give separate access from the north to the nave and chancel of the church. By this stage the 12th-century south door would have been blocked up by the insertion of the new (16th-/17th-century) western end wall and the 16th-/17th-century door in the western gable would have given access only to the blocked off portion which by then comprised the priest's house. The insertion of the 16th-/17th-century north door was then necessary to give separate access to the church and the porch with a further door in its eastern wall was built around it.

Cutting 4
This was made across the site of the western wall of a building (probably a sacristy) which projects from the south-east corner of the church. It was intended to ascertain whether a break in the wall represented the site of a window or doorway. On excavation it could be shown that the break was the site of a window. It was also hoped to establish the depth of deposit here and to see whether any dating for what seemed to be a late building could be found. Two fragments, one a single-light window head and the second a doorway fragment, both of 15th-/16th-century date, had been reused in the overground remains. Excavation showed that though the building as it survived overground had been substantially rebuilt in post-medieval times, it was actually built, or rather rebuilt, in the exact same site and was of two phases. The rebuilding phase was probably post-medieval and the structure which was probably a sacristy originally had been renovated, probably as a Penal period chapel. Portion of a lignite bracelet came from a disturbed context within this structure.

Cutting 5 and 5 a
These cuttings were made outside and within the turret-like construction which is attached to the exterior of the north wall. This structure proved to be a toilet of 16th-/17th-century date and was contemporary with the priest's house at the west end of the church. Access to the toilet was from the lst floor of this priest's house.

The interior of the structure, Cutting 5a, was excavated and was found to contain organic deposits, sandy soil and quantities of animal bone in its lowermost fill. Among the finds were the jaw bones of a boar.

On the exterior of the toilet turret was a lintelled opening through which waste material was cleaned out. A group of late burials, part of a mass burial of post-medieval date, was also found to the east of Cutting 5. These five or six burials contained some mortar from the partial collapse of some of the stonework of the toilet turret. It seems possible that these burials are very late in date. They all appear to have been buried, some of them one on top of the other, as part of a mass, single period burial and they may date to the mid-19th-century Famine period.

Cutting 6
This cutting was made between the chancel of the church and the doorway leading into the sacristy building attached to the south-east corner of the church. The base of the doorway which provided access between the two buildings was uncovered as a result of excavation.

Cutting 7
A small cutting was made in the north-east corner of the chancel to establish the reported presence of a monument to Archbishop Fallon. Excavation resulted in the discovery of an 18th-century Fallon Monument but not that to the Archbishop. The slab had been severely damaged and a replica of the stone with an almost identical inscription was also found at the site.

Finds
The commonest finds were 19th- and 20th-century glass, pottery and clay pipes. A few sherds of post-medieval pottery including some 17th-century North Devonshire Sgraffito ware were found in the vicinity of the toilet turret in Cutting 5. About a dozen stone objects, including a hammer stone and rotary disc quern fragments were found. Some of the querns bore cruciform decoration based on circles and arcs of circles. Excavated examples of this type occurred in 15th–17th-century contexts at Ballintubber Abbey, Co. Mayo; Clontuskert, Moyne and Abbeytown (Kilnamonagh), Co. Galway and St James' Cemetery, Galway City. (See above, No. 108). Iron slag was also found but the only diagnostically early find was portion of an Early Christian Period lignite bracelet.

Architectural fragments included door fragments of 12th-, 15th-, 16th- and 17th-century date, window fragments of 15th-, 16th- and 17th-century date, coping stones and tie-in stones from the post-medieval gables, a crudely hollowed stone and numerous fragments of 18th- and 19th-century funerary monuments as well as other worked ashlar of various periods.

St Gerard's, 18 College Road, Galway