County: Cork Site name: BARRYSCOURT CASTLE, Carrigtwohill
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 75:0801 Licence number: 96E0238
Author: Dave Pollock
Site type: Castle - tower house
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 582177m, N 572521m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.904558, -8.258999
This excavation took place ahead of planting and consolidation work and was funded by the NMHPS, Dept of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. Further excavations were undertaken in the bawn, to locate the east wall of the west range and to investigate the use of the bawn in the 16th century. Trenches were cut north and south of it to investigate contemporary land use.
The west range was built with the bawn wall, attaching itself to the standing tower-house. The dimensions of the two-storyed south end of the range were established in 1996 (Excavations 1996, 10–11); the width of the central hall was discovered in a small trench this year.
A substantial mortared dividing wall was built with the main bawn wall or shortly after, enclosing the angle between the west range and the tower-house. The wall was later dismantled and replaced with an even wider version (as wide as the bawn wall), enclosing a larger area, and with a battered base (similar to the main bawn wall) facing into the remainder of the bawn. Remains of a timber structure built against the earlier dividing wall may be associated with protecting a spring or shallow well.
No supporting evidence was found for an ornamental garden inside the bawn (suggested after the 1996 excavation), but there were some indications of spade cultivation to the west of the later dividing wall, perhaps in the 17th century.
Excavations inside and outside the bawn found evidence of ambitious landscaping prior to the construction of the bawn wall. Flat-bottomed ditches had been cut into the hillside. Below the bawn these were infilled when the bawn wall was built, but elsewhere they remained open for a while. The arrangement of ditches is unclear, but appears to be generally centred on the tower-house. The ditches would have been open after the construction of the tower-house, and are unlikely to pre-date the building. They probably channelled and held water.
Proposed geophysical surveying and further excavation should clarify the pattern of landscaping and indicate a function.
Arbour Hill, Fethard, Co. Tipperary
