County: Roscommon Site name: CLEGNA, COOTEHALL
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 7:15 Licence number: 04E1694
Author: Christopher Read, North West Archaeological Services, Cloonfad Cottage, Cloonfad, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim.
Site type: Post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 589209m, N 804749m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.991886, -8.164546
The site is located in the village of Cootehall, Co. Roscommon. It is accessed from the entrance road, defined by an ornamental gate, which leads to the site of a castle, now occupied by a farm. It is proposed to build a two-storey house with access road, septic tank and raised percolation area on the site. A castle is located directly to the north of the site. The site is part of a larger green field that slopes down from east to west to the Boyle River. The castle is thought to be early 17th century and built by Sir Charles Coote, who was appointed Provost Marshall of Connaught in 1605. The north and east walls of the bawn, together with the north-east and north-west towers, are largely intact. The south-east tower has been incorporated into the farmhouse and part of the north end of the west wall also survives. Only the base of the south-west tower survives and the south wall is absent.
Four trenches measuring 10m by 1m were excavated across the site of the proposed development, focusing upon the foundations of the building, site access and septic tank. The percolation area will be substantially raised and will not require any excavation. All of the trenches were excavated to a depth of 0.35–0.4m. Two of the four trenches revealed no potential archaeological remains. One possible feature was revealed in Trench 1 and two in Trench 4. All three were linear cuts of varying widths and depths but were all filled with charcoal-enriched soil, small stones and oyster shell. One of the linear cuts in Trench 4 was quite substantial, 1.05m wide, and was filled with considerable amounts of stone. This may have been the foundation trench of a wall, although the red brick found in the fill may suggest a later date. A piece of cut masonry with a partially cylindrical groove cut out of it was revealed during the course of the testing. The stone appears to be limestone and measures c. 0.4m long by 0.25m wide by 0.1m thick. The diameter of the groove is c. 0.1m. It appears to be a broken half of gun loop, a number of which survive on the north wall of the bawn. While the above features may be early modern in date, they could also be contemporary with the castle.
