2005:1363 - BARLOW’S FIELD, Carrowcashel, Sligo

In June and July 2005, fieldwork conducted at the Barlow Field site in County Sligo represented the twelfth year of research into the material conditions of daily life in rural Ireland during the late 18th and 19th centuries. The project, sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Rural Ireland, was co-directed by Charles E. Orser Jr. and Stephen A. Brighton as a six-week field school through Illinois State University. The Sligo Folk Park in Riverstown provided support for the project for the third year in a row.

The site, located c. 1.6km north of Riverstown, is a single-component cabin site, probably occupied from c. 1790 to c. 1850. It is situated on a small rise in boggy ground on land that was once part of the Cooper estate and administered by Coopershill House (the location of excavations in 2003 and 2004, see Excavations 2003, No. 1670, and Excavations 2004, No. 1538) and Markree Castle. The cabin was made of stone and one section of the south wall was visible prior to excavation. Excavation was conducted in 1m by 1m squares throughout the entire extent of the cabin remains. A hearth was discovered and excavated, as was the entire floor surface. The floor was hard-packed clay within the living area with large, flat stones in the hearth. The floor at the byre end was composed of rough cobbling.

Excavation revealed that the cabin was either demolished after eviction or was abandoned and allowed to disintegrate through time. The rather tight date of the artefacts suggests the first possibility, though little historical evidence exists at present to substantiate this interpretation.

The collection of 2320 domestic artefacts provides a unique view of rural material culture in Sligo during the early 19th century. The collection includes sponge-decorated and transfer-printed fine earthenware ceramics, probably imported from Scotland, several other kinds of ceramics, glass fragments from bottles and tumblers, buttons, white clay smoking pipes (marked examples are from Derry and Dublin), iron agricultural tools and a silver thimble. This collection represents an important addition to our growing database of 19th-century domestic material from rural Ireland.

Historical research at the Manuscripts Division of the National Library in Dublin allowed the compilation of a summary history of the townland. This information is supplemented by an 18th-century map, drawn as part of the Markree Castle estate papers and dated 1788. It plots the fields in the townland and describes the area of the Barlow’s Field site as reclaimable moor. The area was not settled at this time, however. The account books for the townland provide the names of the townland’s main tenants, but do not indicate the names of the site inhabitants. It is thus likely that a subtenant inhabited the Barlow’s Field cabin site.

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