2002:1594 - CHURCH ISLAND, Roscommon

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Roscommon Site name: CHURCH ISLAND

Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 6:6 Licence number: 00E0483

Author: Heather A. King, Dúchas: The Heritage Service

Site type: Shrine

Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)

ITM: E 618636m, N 811826m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.055249, -7.715381

A small excavation was undertaken on the tomb shrine on Church Island in Lough Key in 2000 (Excavations 2000, No. 860). The work was not finished as a large ivy root ran through the north wall, and it was decided to leave this in situ until the National Monuments district staff began consolidation work. Removal of the ivy took place on 26 June without further damage to the wall.

Excavation of the collapsed material and c. 0.2m of topsoil along the base of the north wall was undertaken to expose the plinth to allow for repointing. A quernstone fragment was retrieved from this material. Level with the base of the plinth, a large, flat flag was uncovered. It lay immediately adjacent to the plinth, with its long axis west–east, and had the appearance of a grave-slab, although there was no evidence of any inscription, tooling or decoration. It appeared to be either contemporary with the plinth or in situ when the plinth was built. This was left undisturbed. A small amount of mortar adhered to the wall and plinth, which indicates that the entire building was plastered and whitewashed.

Two burials were recovered from within the shrine. The burial in situ in the cist was identified by Laureen Buckley as an older adult male and was radiocarbon dated to the mid-11th to mid-12th century. The second ‘burial’ consisted of a quantity of disarticulated bone, including the remains of at least one adult male and a long bone from at least one other individual. Radiocarbon analysis of one of these bones yielded a probable mid-13th-century date.

The building has been fully conserved based on the results of the excavation and the drawings by Francis Grose in The antiquities of Ireland (1791).

Dún Scéine, Harcourt Lane, Dublin 2