County: Mayo Site name: Tonatanvally, Cauran Point, Achill Island
Sites and Monuments Record No.: - Licence number: 06E0646
Author: Eoin Halpin, ADS Ltd, Windsor House, 11 Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3.
Site type: 17th-century house site
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 469679m, N 809711m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.020134, -9.988769
A short season of fieldwork, in collaboration with Royal Holloway, University of London, and grant-aided by the Royal Irish Academy, was undertaken as a pilot study of the archaeology and environment of a machair landscape on Achill Island, Co. Mayo. Archaeology eroding out from deflation hollows afforded the opportunity to investigate the interaction between man and the development of machair, a feature of the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland.
The results of the excavation of one of the structures revealed a drystone building, probably a house, subrectangular in plan, measuring 10m by 5m, with the long axis aligned east–west and constructed directly on the sand. A doorway was uncovered along the north façade.
A badly corroded iron object was recovered from the occupation deposits in the interior, and examination of it along with radiocarbon dates will give a secure dating framework into which the results of the ongoing palaeoenvironmental work can be slotted. In the meantime, the form of the structure, similar to that of the traditional ‘beehive’ huts, suggests a 17th-century date for its construction.
