2002:0416 - DONEGAL CASTLE, Donegal, Donegal

Between 30 April and 27 November 2002 small-scale excavations in relation to service trenches at Donegal Castle took place. Initially two service trenches (T1 and T2) were excavated within the 17th-century manor house attached to the western side of the 15th-century tower-house.

T1, for a water pipe, started 2m inside the ground-floor doorway and extended as far as the northern corner of the kitchen area, beyond the fireplace in the north wall. It was excavated to a depth of 0.23m and averaged 0.25m wide. The top 0.2m comprised a modern fill material known as Barnesmore gravel, beneath which was a black organic layer containing delft, a clay bottle-stopper etc., all post-medieval. Some roof slates were mixed in with this, however, and may be from the original roof of the manor house.

T2, for drainage, extended across the interior of the manor house from inside the ground-floor doorway to the north wall, where it linked up with a 17th-century drainage outlet. The trench was 0.6m wide and 0.4m deep. A black organic layer at a depth of 0.12–2m covered a drain that ran north–south and appeared to be contemporary with the manor house. The top of the drain was stone lined, but the drain itself was an unlined earth-cut channel, dug into a compact yellow clay. This yellow layer contained fragments of wall plaster, mortar and two clay-pipe stems. The drain was oriented north–south and exited through a point in the north wall 0.78m east of the north-west window. The exit for the drain is box shaped, 0.24m wide and 0.12m high, and is also at the level of the yellow clay layer, which may represent the original floor level or a working level when the manor house was being built.

Another trench (T3) for a new drain to link up with T2 was excavated along the front of the manor house. An extension to this trench (T5) was excavated beyond the south-west corner of the manor house as far as the path inside the bawn wall on the west. T3 was 0.6m wide and 0.4m deep. The top 0.4m consisted of modern fill containing post-medieval material, including delft and the base of an 18th- or 19th-century wine bottle. This modern layer overlay a brown clay layer that may be contemporary with the manor house. Internally glazed pottery of probable 17th-century date turned up at this level. T3 was widened in front of the tower-house by another 0.56m to allow a new slab to replace a broken one over an old drain. Under the broken slab was a thin layer of black organic soil, c. 0.08m deep. Beneath this was a layer of clay, c. 0.08m deep, containing shell and fragments of mortar. This in turn overlay a layer of loose stones and clay that may have been introduced as a fill for levelling outside the manor house. This layer was 0.22m deep and overlay a compact brown layer that produced 17th-century pottery and the bowl of a 17th-century clay pipe, beside the door jamb. T5, the extension to T3, though dug to the same depth, was not as complex. The topsoil had a large shell content, mixed with modern delft, and overlay a black organic layer.

T4, for an electric cable, started 3.4m out from the east corner of the tower-house, by the bawn wall. It ran west and north along the tower-house walls and entered the manor house at its eastern end. It was 0.3m wide and 0.32m deep and on the line of a modern drainpipe that used an old exit in the bawn wall. The ground was quite disturbed, and, although more 17th-century pottery was recovered, nothing else of archaeological significance was noted.

Two trenches for manholes were opened to the north-west of the tower-/manor house, on sloping ground that runs down to the River Eske. The first (MH1) was dug against the exterior wall of the northern arm of the manor house. It measured 1m by 1m, and the upper 0.71m of fill contained numerous roots in a loose black clay, the stem of a clay pipe and some modern delft. Beneath this was a slaty clay that in turn overlay bedrock. The trench revealed three courses of foundation walling built up from the underlying bedrock.

The second manhole trench (MH2) was just below the break of slope down to the river, 3.5m from the centre of the north wall of the tower-house. It measured 2m by 1m and ranged in depth from 1.3m at the north to 0.8m at the south. Toward the western end of the trench, at a depth of 0.2m, human remains (G2) were discovered in a slab-lined, lintelled grave, the floor of which appeared also to be paved with slabs. The grave was greatly disturbed by root action, and the lower part of the skeleton was missing. It may have been disturbed when the castle was being built, as some of the stones overlying the burial were cut stone, probably from the castle, and some of the slabs lining the burial had mortar adhering to them, again suggesting disturbance in the past. The burial had an east–west orientation with the head to the west and appeared to be that of a child or juvenile. Two other possible graves (G1 and G3) ran parallel to G2, to the east and west. They did not contain articulated remains but fragments of human bone mixed with large concentrations of animal bone and oyster shells, i.e. refuse from the castle mixed in with human remains as a result of root action. Further fragments of human remains (G4) that lay beneath G1 may indicate layering within the graves and the possibility that this is a cemetery. A possible fifth grave in the north-east corner of the cutting appeared to have been deliberately emptied and incorporated in a drain for the tower-house. There appears to have been considerable disturbance of the graves when the tower-house was constructed. The fact that out of five possible graves only two contained articulated remains suggests that bones may have been gathered up and placed elsewhere when works related to the building of the castle uncovered them. The graves are typical of the early medieval lintel type, which implies that the castle was constructed on a pre-existing cemetery. Unglazed red earthenware was found on top of the late medieval rubble fill that covered the graves, and a sherd of Bellarmine ware was found mixed with castle rubble at the base of the trench.

A pipe-trench was excavated between MH1 and MH2, 0.42m wide and 0.9m deep. Again, root action had caused much disturbance, and, although animal bone was plentiful, fragments of human bone were also found in this area, suggesting that human remains disturbed during the building of the castle may have been reinterred.

Dún Scéine, Harcourt Lane, Dublin 2