- Cloonshee, Co. Galway, Galway

In June 1998 human remains were discovered in a bog at Cloonshee, near Aghascragh, Co. Galway.¹⁰³ The remains were dug out of a drain by an excavator and consisted of a single human skull. The find was reported to the Gardaí, who brought the remains to the assistant chief state pathologist’s office. According to the latter’s report, the skull was probably that of a female and no evidence of homicide was found. A hacksaw cut of a portion of the skull produced a slightly organic smell, which led the assistant chief state pathologist to believe that the skull was not buried for more than 200 years. There was no evidence for grave structure or artefacts associated with the burial.

Human remains
REPORT BY THE ASSISTANT CHIEF STATE PATHOLOGIST On 23 June 1998, Garda Brendan Kerins, Scene of Crime Officer, Ballinasloe, brought to my office a skull in four pieces. This had been found in a bog in some spoil dug out of a drain by an excavator. It was relatively near the site of the Battle of Aughrim and many skeletal remains from that battlefield were apparently dumped in bogs in other places whenever dug up. This was a human skull, comprising in the main portion a near-complete cranial cavity and portions of the maxilla or upper jaw. The three remaining separate portions were the right temporal bone, both petrous and squamous parts, which fitted exactly into the main skull, and two portions of the left side of the maxilla or upper jaw. Much of the right side of the upper jaw was still in place. The skull on the whole was darkly stained and coated with some yellowish deposit on the right temporal and parietal parts. There was no sign of any homicidal injury to the skull in that its vault was intact. It had quite a large cranial cavity but neither the supraorbital prominences nor the occipital muscle insertions at the back of the skull were very prominent, which would suggest a female rather than a male origin.

Dentition: there were four teeth on this skull, nos 4 and 7 on the right and nos 4 and 7 or 8 on the left. The no. 7, a molar, showed neither decay nor attrition or wear. All three other teeth did show attrition, that is, wear of their occlusal or chewing surfaces. This implied firstly that they were in use in the individual chewing food that contained grit and therefore bread before steel flour milling was commonplace. The single molar on the right did not show this attrition, suggesting that it had been an unerupted tooth for some time. If it had erupted, however, it suggests that the deceased did not live a long time after the eruption of the tooth. The cranial sutures had not united, which, while a poor guide to age, would suggest that the individual had been no older than middle life and possibly younger.

Test for protein: I did a hacksaw cut of a portion of the skull and could smell a slightly organic smell from the sawdust thus produced. This suggests that this skull was not a very ancient one, taken together with the dental evidence, perhaps 100–200 years old. The right squamous temple bone showed a defect at one point where the bone was exceedingly thin, suggesting perhaps that some of the bone tissue had been dissolved away. This would have been a post-mortem phenomenon.

Conclusions: a skull of indeterminate sex was submitted for examination and did not show any evidence of homicide. It was that of a person probably in early middle age. It was at least a century old but could have been one or two centuries old. In view of the indeterminate sex it is just possible that it might have been the skull of a participant in the Battle of Aughrim.

103. Parish of Ahascragh, barony of Killian. SMR GA061-134——; the exact location of the site is not marked.