2000:0743 - TURIN, Mayo

This excavation work was carried out in advance of the building being renovated and converted to a residence with a provision for a septic tank. The project only concerned the interior of the building. Pre-development testing and monitoring of ground disturbance associated with the exterior of the structure had been carried out under a separate licence by Richard Crumlish (Excavations 1999, 231, 99E0719).

Little is known of the history of Turin tower-house. O’Donovan’s Ordnance Survey Letters of 1838 refer to it as having been built by the Burke family, while Knox’s History of Mayo associates Walter McJonyn with the tower-house.

Turin tower-house is a five-storey building constructed of well-coursed limestone blocks with dressed stone reserved for the quoins, doorways and window openings. The upper levels of the top floor and the roof no longer survive. The internal layout is comparable to most of these structures in the west of Ireland. The entrance gives access to a short lobby with three doorways. The opposing doorway leads to the ground-floor main chamber, while adjacent doorways lead to the guardroom and stairway. The building’s interior consists of two main vertical divisions, one comprising the entrance, stairway and smaller chambers, the other comprising the main chambers. This layout continues throughout the building, with each level, except the top, comprising a main chamber and subsidiary chamber, with provisions for mural chambers where appropriate. The top floor was the main residential level, indicated by the largest floor space.

The excavation of the interior was mainly concentrated on Level V, where a significant depth of soil had accumulated. Elsewhere the excavation concentrated on the vaulted chambers and the removal of fill from either side of the haunches. In a number of chambers the wooden floors no longer survive, while in others the original stone surface lay immediately beneath a thin covering of debris.

The excavations uncovered a number of artefacts and features/deposits. The stratigraphy encountered in all levels, apart from the top, was quite shallow, and it appears that these levels may have been disturbed and cleaned out at some period. The architectural features of the building’s fourth floor were also altered, possibly in the 17th century, with the installation of larger window openings. In the second-floor main chamber and garderobe chamber, the function of the chambers was altered to accommodate a pigeon loft.

The excavations uncovered an interesting drain feature in the centre of the original paved stone surface of the ground-floor main chamber. In appearance this feature is very similar to the drains discovered in byre houses and suggests a working area and/or space where animals may have been housed. The necessity for such a feature in the tower-house highlights the possible agricultural/ commercial function of this level of the building as opposed to the more residential-based upper levels. This theory is strengthened by the absence of any fireplace and the provision of very narrow slits giving limited light at this level.

Excavation of the subsidiary chambers and the second-floor main chamber revealed little of significance. The only stratigraphy was confined to the haunches on either side of the massive stone vault, and these proved to be relatively sterile. In the second-floor subsidiary chamber, areas of burning with charcoal inclusions were noted, but their stratigraphy suggests that they are of little significance and are probably the result of more recent burning. The excavations revealed that clay and stone were brought into the building and used to fill the haunches on either side of the vault. A thin layer of earth was spread on top of the vault and acted as the floor surface.

The top level of the building proved the most interesting, as it was heavily overgrown and showed no signs of any disturbance. Under the topsoil, excavation revealed a scorched clay layer and a more charcoal-enriched layer. From these layers fifteen pottery fragments were recovered, and it appears that this was the original floor surface at this level. Its scorched appearance and frequent charcoal inclusions are likely to be the result of the timber roof having caught fire and collapsed onto the floor. The evidence for burning is also visible in the walls at this level, where a number of the stones have fire cracks. It is interesting that no fireplace was evident at this level of the tower-house; however, the window embrasure in the east wall did have charcoal and some burnt bone inclusions, suggesting that it was blocked up and utilised as a fireplace.

As a result of the excavations, and from the limited historical references available, it appears that Turin tower-house possibly dates to the 16th/17th century. The architectural features support this broad dating range, with no early architectural features visible in the surviving structure. An examination of pottery recovered from the building indicated that most of it was stoneware, dating to the 17th and 18th centuries.

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