1999:762 - BALLYKILCLINE, Roscommon

Field excavations were conducted at the early 19th-century townland of Ballykilcline in Kilglass parish, Co. Roscommon, from 5 July to 6 August. The excavation team consisted of seventeen undergraduate archaeology students enrolled in Illinois State University's regular summer field school in historical archaeology. Funds for the research derived from student fees generated as part of the course. The excavated portion of the village is owned by J.J. and Dolores Neary, who live in nearby Glebe House. The excavation was conducted with their complete support and encouragement.

During its final years the townland of Ballykilcline was a Crown estate. From the 1790s to 1834 the Mahon family, owners of Strokestown Park House about seven miles away, leased the townland from the Crown. In 1834, however, the townland reverted to the Crown. Before their eviction in 1847 and 1848 the tenants refused to pay their rents and were involved in a protracted and often violent strike.

Before the 1999 excavation Kevin Barton, of the Applied Geophysics Unit of the National University of Ireland, Galway, made a detailed subsurface survey of the site using ground-probing radar. The placement of the cuttings was based on the results of these tests combined with three other sources of information: the results of the 1998 excavation (Excavations 1998, 177–8), the results of earlier geophysical testing, and the house locations depicted on the Ordnance Survey map. A total of 38 1m-by-2m cuttings were excavated, and 1352 artefacts were collected.

All excavation was conducted with hand tools in natural soil layers, and all artefacts were collected regardless of size or temporal affiliation. All excavated earth was sifted through soil screens to facilitate the collection of small artefacts such as beads, straight pins and buttons. Accurate depth measurements (both below surface and below datum) were recorded for every artefact discovered.

With the exception of six isolated chert flakes, all of the artefacts date to the 1800–48 period. The artefact distribution breaks down into the following gross categories: ceramics (fine earthenware, coarse earthenware and porcelain) = 502 sherds (37.1% of the total sample); glass (curved and flat) = 610 sherds (45.1%); metal (iron, brass, lead and copper) = 166 pieces (12.3%); and 'other' (bone, charcoal, slate, animal teeth and bone, whitewash samples, turf samples) = 74 (5.5%). From a purely historical standpoint, perhaps the most interesting artefact discovered was a small, plain whiteware sherd with a hole drilled through it. This tangible evidence for use alteration confirms folkloric information about the repair and reuse of broken dishes in Irish homes.

Twenty-three contexts were identified in 1999. Three of these were layers identified in 1998, but the others were newly discovered. They included a cobble yard area or floor surface, the surface and curbing of a 19th-century roadway, and a pit feature possibly used for storage. Further evidence of the stone walls discovered in 1998 was not found.

The soil stratigraphy at the site was straightforward. It consisted of five layers: sod, topsoil, two horizons of dark yellowish/brown, loamy soil, and a deeper, dark yellowish/brown, culturally sterile clay. Most of the artefacts and the human-built features were found just below the topsoil, often in a zone mixed with medium-sized rocks.

Current thinking about the site, which was the 19th-century home of the Nary family, is that the archaeology reveals evidence of conscious site destruction. This is the second season of research at the old Nary home site, and a comparison of the 1998 results with those from 1999 indicates some horizontal movement of artefacts across the site from west to east. Although conclusions are now too preliminary to advance with confidence, it is possible that when the Nary cabin was razed after the evictions it was pushed to the right (towards the east) and that many of the stones from the wall footings and the yard areas were salvaged and used to built post-eviction buildings and walls. If this is the case, evidence for the evictions must lie all around the Kilglass area, much of it in plain sight.

The 1999 excavation was conducted as part of a larger archaeological effort to examine the material basis of rural life on the eve of the Great Hunger. Although Ballykilcline is the third site tested as part of this research project, it is clearly the most interesting and also the most promising for meeting the goals of this anthropological effort.

The ceramic sample continues to be especially interesting. The large amount of imported English fine earthenware in the sample implies that, instead of paying their annual rents to the Crown, the tenants used their meagre funds to improve their material condition. In addition, the collection of locally made coarse earthenwares further argues for the importance of this industry to the men and women of 19th-century rural Ireland. Ballykilcline is important from historical, anthropological and archaeological standpoints, and it is expected that further excavations will broaden our understanding of early 19th-century rural life in this part of the country.