2007:167 - Barnhill Woods, Dromoland, Clare

Excavation was carried out at Barnhill Woods, Dromoland, Co. Clare, in April and May 2007. The work was undertaken on behalf of Clare County Council. The proposed development involved the construction of a reservoir and associated pipe works as part of the Newmarket-on-Fergus water supply scheme. Unlicensed monitoring of groundworks in March 2007 exposed in situ human remains and associated archaeological material including pits, fire-shattered stone and charcoal-enriched soil. Following these discoveries, construction work was temporarily halted pending a site inspection by Margaret Keane, archaeologist with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
Excavation recommenced in April and was completed on 29 May 2007. Work exposed a multi-phased complex consisting of a single round house defined by a semi-circular footing trench, c. 11m in diameter, with external post-holes, possibly sockets for slanting roof poles. Internally there was a slot-trench running north–south marking an internal division, with ancillary pits and post-holes. Outside the structure there was an assortment of small pits and post- and stake-holes. To the north of the round house was an 8m-long ditch, 1.95m wide and 1m deep. This ditch in all probability forms a section of an enclosing element or defensive fosse. Indeed a test-trench excavated to the west of the site, through the route of the new haul road, to find the return of this fosse exposed a ditch section that generally corresponds with the width, depth and stratigraphy of that found to the north.
The Barnhill house conforms broadly with Martin Doody’s classification of Bronze Age houses in Ireland, having a round floor plan with a single footing trench and a single outer ring of post-holes (Doody 2000). The majority of round house sites (over 60%) are 5–9m in diameter, which makes the Barnhill house exceptional in terms of its size. Unfortunately, as only half the house survived, it was impossible to comment on the internal supports, the location of the hearth or the entranceway, all of which were impacted on negatively during the course of initial clearing works.
Later events on the site included a number of burials of varying orientations scattered across the area. These burials post-dated the ditch feature. A total of eighteen individual inhumations were excavated comprising twelve adults and six juveniles. Two multiple graves were uncovered, one containing two children aged between seven and twelve years of age, the other containing two adults. No infant remains were recovered from the site. The skeletons are representative of a rural population suffering periods of malnutrition and undertaking physical work leading to degenerative joint disease of the spine. Individuals were mostly buried in a supine extended position with hands across the pelvis. The burials are of unknown date but, pending the return of 14C results, are tentatively dated to between ad 500 and ad 1800.
Also in evidence throughout the area were furrows suggestive of cultivation ridges or ‘lazy-beds’; their unlikely setting on top of a hill is indicative of the pressures on available agricultural land in the late 18th and early 19th century.
The round house and enclosing ditch at Barnhill should be considered in terms of its interaction with the wider archaeological environment of the Fergus Estuary and, specifically, the region’s natural focus, Mooghaun Hillfort. Given its proximity to Mooghaun, the Barnhill site would slot into a regional network of sites functioning as defensive outposts for the larger complex.
Reference
Doody, M. 2000 Bronze Age houses in Ireland. In A. Desmond, G. Johnson, M. McCarthy, J. Sheehan and E. Shee Twohig (eds), New agendas in Irish prehistory: papers in commemoration of Liz Anderson, 135–58. Wordwell.