2006:1168 - DUNAMASE CASTLE, Laois

Testing was carried out at Dunamase Castle in July 2006 as part of the programme of conservation and cleaning of the Rock of Dunamase by the Office of Public Works. A total of eight archaeological operations were carried out as part of the testing. Six of these were in the sally port, comprising four test-pits, and the cleaning and recording of a set of steps and a post-hole. The remaining two operations, comprising two additional test-pits, were located in the cistern. The history of Dunamase Castle and the results of the numerous seasons of archaeological work there has been extensively documented elsewhere (especially by Brian Hodkinson). Hodkinson’s work demonstrated that the earliest fortifications are early medieval (9th-century) in date and that the majority of the defences date to the late 12th and 13th centuries.

The test excavation was undertaken in order to assess the suitability of the sally port for a proposed programme of archaeological and conservation work in order to better present this part of the Dunamase Castle complex to the public. The sally port is a long thin structure built against the side of the rock face to the west of the Dunamase Castle complex. It is positioned outside the main curtain wall surrounding the summit of the rock at a potential weak point in the castle defences where the slope up to the rock is relatively gentle. A narrow gate at the base of the sally port gave access to the castle. At present, the sally port is mostly filled with large stone rubble, mostly from the collapsed curtain wall.

The purpose of the archaeological work in the cistern was to provide information on the function of the cistern and its likely date, with the results of the excavation informing a proposed public placard.

Overall, the testing programme demonstrated that further archaeological investigations of the sally port are warranted and could significantly add to our understanding of the chronology, use and eventual abandonment and destruction of the castle. The testing also demonstrated that the sally port would be an excellent part of the castle to clean up and present to the public. Three phases of construction were suggested, dating from the main period of use of the castle in the medieval period (late 12th- to 13th-century), from the earliest evidence for a possible postern gate, to the construction of the curtain wall and finally the construction of the sally port itself. Features such as the locking mechanism used to close the sally-port doorway and a possible rush floor provided information on the use of the building. The sally port appears to have been abandoned and perhaps intentionally damaged in the late medieval period, although evidence in the form of steps formed by collapsed stones attest to reuse in the late 18th century.

The testing programme revealed that the sally port is presently filled in with some 200m3 of large collapsed building debris, weighing up to half a tonne each. Rather than lifting the debris up the side of the cliff face to the summit of the rock, the re-creation of an earlier path from the sally-port gate to the base of the hill of Dunamase was recommended. Such a path would make the future excavation of the sally port far safer and less expensive, as the collapsed debris could be moved downhill into dumper trucks and stored at the base of the hill for eventual reuse. The creation of such a path through the existing hazel scrub would require ministerial consent and would need to be archaeologically supervised.

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