1998:056 - DUNASEAD CASTLE, Baltimore, Cork

Test-trenching at Baltimore was carried out on foot of an application for permission to renovate the castle for use as a residence.

Dunasead Castle is a 17th-century fortified house on the west end of a ridge of sandstone rock overlooking Baltimore town and harbour. It is a simple rectangular structure measuring 18.5m north-south x 5.82m internally and standing two storeys high, with an attic above within its high gables. The ground floor is dimly lit with slit windows in the north, east and south walls, while the first floor has two- and three-light ogee windows in the east and west walls. Several sections of the walls were repaired with concrete in the early part of this century. The house stands in the south-west corner of a small bawn measuring c. 28m north-south x c. 14m, enclosed by a dilapidated stone wall, much of which is rebuilt. Apart from the bawn wall the only defensive elements on the structure are the wall walk on the west wall and the bartizan clasping the south-west corner at eaves level, with shot holes facing east and south-west. There appears originally to have been a second bartizan on the north-east corner.

Documentary evidence suggests that the house was built in the late 1620s/early 1630s, possibly by Sir Walter Coppinger, following his acquisition of the site in 1629.

Trenches were excavated across the interior of the building and across the bawn. Within the building, removal of a surface layer of c. 0.3m of rubble revealed areas of hard-packed mortar and small shale fragments c. 0.1–0.15m thick in sections of two of the trenches. These may be the remains of an original floor surface, now extensively disturbed. Underneath this was a sub-floor layer of shale hard-core, which was archaeologically sterile and was obviously introduced to level up the rock surface before laying the floor. The hard-core lay on bedrock and boulder clay.

Three trenches were excavated in the bawn area. Two extended approximately east-west across the bawn from the castle wall to the east bawn wall, and the third ran north-south along the base of the east wall of the castle.

The main features of these trenches were the foundations of a garderobe tower at the south end of the east wall of the building, a stone-lined well (diameter 0.7m) c. 7m to the north, adjacent to the castle wall, and several paved and cobbled areas.

The garderobe tower was originally accessed via a first-floor doorway at the south end of the east wall of the castle. The only evidence of the garderobe that survives above ground are three long stones protruding from the wall face at each side of the doorway, which presumably were 'through stones', keying the garderobe tower into the castle wall.

Excavation indicated that the lower levels of the well existed before the construction of the house, although the stone lining of the well was raised by c. 1m after the house was built. The well was accessed from the north via three steps leading down from a paved surface that probably originally extended north to the ground-floor doorway.

A section of a stone-lined drain was uncovered in the bawn, as were the foundations of a wall running east-west across it, possibly remnants of an outbuilding. An area of fine cobblestones immediately east of the castle pre-dated it, while areas of larger cobblestones further north were contemporary with it.

Numerous sherds of late medieval pottery were found distributed over all the excavated areas of the site, with more dense concentrations at the east end of the most northerly trench and in the fill of the well. Included were two fragments of cera- mic ridge tile, similar in appearance to fragments of North Devon ridge tiles found in excavations in Cork City (M.F. Hurley, Excavations at the North Gate (1997), 90).

A number of metal objects were also recovered, particularly in the area immediately to the north of the well, where a number of fragments had become solidly encrusted on the stone. The concentration of metal in this area suggests the possibility of a metal railing around the well. Unfortunately none of the pieces was readily identifiable as all were heavily corroded.

Ballynanelagh, Rathcormac, Co. Cork