1997:452 - ARDANAFFRIN, Roscommon

A test excavation in response to a planning condition was carried out over five days in September.

The site is adjacent to the Doon of Drumsna and to a ringfort. The Doon of Drumsna, an Iron Age linear earthwork, cuts across the neck of north Roscommon from Jamestown to Drumsna. It consists here of a broad bank with a lesser bank to the north, and runs in a curving fashion around the proposed location on its north and west sides. However, in Ardanaffrin, and in Lackagh to the east, there is a considerable natural rise, a drumlin, with an east–west long axis. The north slope of this has been shaped by man. The ground slopes down to the Doon from the field for the proposed house in two steps. These 2m-wide steps, covered in dense hazel, briar and trees, as is the whole slope, run parallel to the Doon along the north face of the slope but well below the edge of the field. They may have functioned as a means of travel along the southern side of The Doon where it takes a major turn.

A ringfort lies 55m uphill from the proposed location. This is covered in trees and undergrowth. The interior, the ditch and the surrounding drumlin top were very wet at the time of excavation.

Jamestown village, about 1km north-west, is overlooked by the site. It was the location of a Franciscan friary and a walled defended town, founded in 1622 by Sir Charles Coote to defend the Shannon crossing.

The name Ardanaffrin derives from the fact that there was a Mass location here in Penal times. The Mass location, 250m west of the proposed development, was at a tree and there was never a Mass rock here.

There is no trace today of the house marked on the 1837 OS 6' map just north of the proposed development. There is a lane marked, going eastwards from the road towards the ringfort; this lane was levelled about twenty years ago. Both of the lime-kilns on the Doon in Ardanaffrin were demolished some years ago.

All of these monuments gave rise to concern that there might be archaeological deposits on the proposed development site.

The excavation work took place in September 1997. Two strips, each 2m wide and at right angles to each other, were excavated. The longer strip, ‘AB’, measured 47.7m north-east/south-west, the shorter, ‘CD’, measured 25m north-west/south-east; The topsoil was removed by a small mechanical excavator and then the ground was scraped by shovel or trowelled. The natural undisturbed drumlin soil was reached at depths varying from 0.3m to 0.7m.

At a point where the lane shown on the 6' map should be, there were a number of stones laid with their longer axes across the line of the wall. There were a number of pieces of modern crockery from this wall.

Several pieces of broken domestic tableware, crockery, some iron pieces of farm machinery and a horseshoe were found. These modern finds came at all depths, from under the sod all the way down to the top of the natural undisturbed glacial material of the drumlin itself, clearly indicating that this ground was ploughed intensively many times in the past.

The area tested is archaeologically sterile.

The house marked on the 1837 OS 6' map was not exposed by either of the cuts and that area will not be disturbed by the proposed development. Only some stones of the lowest course of one wall of the lane, presumably the eastern one, were discovered. The other side of the lane was either obliterated about twenty years ago or it may have been a thorn fence, like many of the land divisions in the area.

Bóthar An Corran, Keash, Co. Sligo