County: Laois Site name: DUNAMASE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 13:52 Licence number: 93E0150
Author: Brian Hodkinson
Site type: Castle - Anglo-Norman masonry castle
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 651865m, N 698132m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.031350, -7.226764
The 1997 season, again funded by the National Monuments Service, concentrated on the hall at the top of the Rock with the objective of uncovering as much of the wall-line as possible and investigating part of the solar area.
The major discovery was an original doorway in the southern wall directly opposite the main door in the northern wall. Like the main door, it was later protected with a forebuilding, but smaller and less massive than that to the north. The forebuilding is poorly preserved, having been reduced to foundation level for a large part of its wall-line, and the southern wall is almost completely absent. One side of the doorway was, however, standing to some height and can be seen to have a drawbar hole, a feature absent on the northern forebuilding.
The added batter revealed last year, starting at the eastern side of the northern door, can now be shown to run around the east end of the building to the south door and from the western edge of that door to roughly the mid-line of the west wall, where it is believed to stop. There is as yet no trace of a batter at the north-west corner and to the west of the north door. The batter along the southern and western walls has been badly defaced, and on the west side collapsing masonry falling into the hall has kicked the batter and buckled it.
The southern door was blocked, probably in the 18th century, and at the same time another door was inserted further to the west in the same wall. This second doorway was formed by breaking through an original embrasure and lowering its base, which necessitated smashing through the batter as well. There are some indications that this doorway was never completed because one side of the passage through the wall was neatly refaced but the other was left as a scar.
Work on a small area along the inside of the west wall revealed the true position of an embrasure known from collapsed masonry. This embrasure, like the one in the northern wall (Excavations 1995, 53; Excavations 1996, 62), had a narrow stone structure in front of it, interpreted as part of a laver base. The area also revealed evidence for lead-working, in the form of a small hearth, which is probably contemporary with the building of the hall.
The southern half of the solar area was also excavated down to subsoil. The northern limit to this area was a cross-wall added during the 18th-century attempts to refurbish the hall, and this wall can now be seen to have had side-by-side fireplaces facing into opposite rooms, with a door between the two rooms at the western end.
Unfortunately most of the solar area had been badly disturbed at the time of the refurbishment, and the remaining areas were too small to fully understand. The lower deposits, which produced a ring-pin and the shank of a second, probably pre-date the castle, while a small post-hole at hall construction level may have held a support for the second floor of the solar. The significance of some short sections of burnt planking at a slightly higher level is unclear, though they could just be part of the original flooring arrangement.
Cragg, Birdhill, Co. Tipperary
