1997:571 - DUNGARVAN CASTLE, Dungarvan, Waterford

In 1997 the third season of excavations ahead of consolidation of the castle took place (see Excavations 1995, 84–5, and 1996, 111, for previous reports).

In the shell keep the hall had been cleared of garden soil and rubble the previous year; in 1997 garden soil and rubble were stripped from the remaining half of the area, to expose part of a long building inserted opposite the hall (apparently contemporary, 13th-century, but without a basement) and a later building set between the two, attached to the inside of the entrance. On the west side of the keep the arrangement of buildings was masked by a length of fallen wall, probably the south side of the hall, lying where it had fallen in the late 17th/early 18th century. The area was excavated only to the early 18th-century ground level. A damaged 13th-century cistern at the west end of the hall was emptied, exposing marine silt in situ and upcast when the shell was constructed. The high ground inside the shell is in part natural, in part man-made.

In the round tower, at the south-west corner of the castle yard, material was cleared from over the inserted vault. One quadrant had been excavated two years previously; in 1997 the remainder was taken down. Remains of a 19th-century wooden floor overlay imported garden soil over broken roof slates and slight indications of a wooden floor original to the vault. The garden soil was imported and worked by the garrison after c. 1700 and into the 19th century.

A number of human skulls were found in the soil, some damaged by blows with a blade. Heads were probably displayed on poles over the roofless tower during the 18th century (perhaps in 1798?).

In the north-east corner of the castle yard a trench had been cut over two seasons to establish the line of the vanished north curtain-wall and to assess the survival of medieval levels. In 1997 the small space between this trench and the corner of the yard was taken down to the 16th/17th-century ground level. An expansion on the wall, uncovered two years ago, appears to be part of an original (late 13th-century?) rectangular corner-tower, superseded (in the 15th/16th century?) by a tower (D-shaped?) set across the corner. A platform of rocks and clay was built against the corner, behind the tower, perhaps associated with artillery. The tower and wall were mined from the inside and exploded at the end of the 17th century, shortly before the barracks were built and the wall reconstructed.

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