2001:184 - KILCOE, Cork

Earlier work at this site by the author was reported on in Excavations 1998, No. 79 (98E0133), which described test excavations within and to the south of the tower-house, and by Jacinta Kiely in Excavations 1999, No. 105, which described limited excavations to the west of the tower-house.

The present phase involved complete excavation of the areas to the south and west of the tower-house and investigation of an area close to its north-east corner.

An area measuring approximately 8.5m by 14m was excavated to the immediate south of the tower-house, outside the entrance door, with a narrow extension running westwards along the southern edge of the rock platform on which the tower-house is built.

Removal of a layer of modern shale trunking and a thin sod layer revealed the outline of a small courtyard or ‘inner bawn’ on the south side of the tower-house, measuring 7m by 7m. The bawn wall was 1.1–1.2m thick and built of limestone bonded with a strong lime mortar. It stood to a maximum height of 0.5m. The northern half of the bawn contained a cobblestone yard accessed directly from the ground-floor doorway of the tower-house.

From the east end of the yard a flight of stone steps, of which only the base survives, led up to the first-floor doorway of the tower-house, which is directly above the ground-floor doorway. At the west end of the yard the evidence suggests that a doorway led westwards through the bawn wall to the outer bawn, while a second doorway led southwards to a ground-level building which occupied the southern half of the inner bawn. This latter building measured 7.15m east–west by 3.3m. It had a paved floor and was divided into two rooms, the most easterly of which contained a large fireplace. A clay-bonded wall separated it from the cobblestone yard to the north, and its other three sides were formed by the east, west and south bawn walls.

To the east of the inner bawn, foundations of the outer bawn wall were uncovered. It had a semicircular flanking tower along its south side and a rectangular tower at its south-east corner. The east bawn wall has not survived but traces of it and another semicircular tower were found close to the north-east corner of the tower-house.

Nothing has survived of the north bawn wall and a modern sea wall has been built to the north of the tower-house to prevent further erosion.

Approximately 10m to the west of the tower-house, on a rock platform some 2m lower than that on which the tower-house is built, another building was uncovered. In the limited excavation undertaken in 1999 part of the south wall of this building was revealed and interpreted as a section of a bawn wall. Full excavation showed it to be a rectangular structure 5.5m wide (north–south) and at least 9m long. Its west end and most of its north side have been lost to sea erosion. The surviving walls stand to c. 1.3m in height and are constructed of sandstone bonded with clay. Evidence of external plaster survives on the east wall. Entrance to this structure was through a 1.14m-wide doorway in the south wall. The lower jambstones survive, the eastern one displaying a decorative chamfer stop. Fragments recovered during the previous excavation of this area indicate that the doorway had a pointed, two-centred arch typical of late medieval buildings. To the east of the doorway part of a double-splayed window survives, and at the east end of the south wall a wall press survives. The building had a hearth at its eastern end. The function of the building is uncertain but the lack of pottery within it and the recovery of fragments of molten metal suggest an industrial rather than a domestic use and it may have been a smithy.

Approximately 6m to the south of this building a short section of the south bawn wall survives. The foundations of two drystone walls run between the building and the bawn wall. These are late insertions whose function is unclear.

Ballynanelagh, Rathcormac, Co. Cork