2009:206 - CHURCHLAND QUARTERS, Donegal

Pre-development testing was carried out on 29 July 2009 at a site at Churchtown, Carndonagh, Co. Donegal. The proposed development consisted of the demolition of a derelict dwelling-house and the construction of a one-and-a-half storey sports building incorporating a training room, wc facilities, a kitchen, changing rooms, meeting room and storage room and associated facilities with connection into the existing public foul network and all associated site-development works.

Testing was required as the proposed development was located within the constraint for ecclesiastical remains. The monument was marked ^Labbypatrick (Site of)’ on the recent OS Rural Place Map and ^Labbypatrick’ on the 1903 edition of the 6-inch OS sheet. It was not marked on the first edition of the OS 6-inch sheet dating to 1834. The Archaeological Survey of County Donegal (Lacy 1983) referred to a 17th-century text, ^Triadus Thaumaturgae’, in which (locally born scholar) John Colgan described the site as the ^Penitential bed of Saint Patrick surrounded by polished stones’. According to the Megalithic Survey of County Donegal (Cody 2002), the stones which formed the bed were lately removed. The site was included in the Megalithic Survey as a site for which there was insufficient evidence to warrant its acceptance as a megalithic tomb, having been referred to as such by The Shell Guide (Killanin and Duignan 1962, 1967) and by The Heritage of Inishowen (Colhoun 1949). The feature would have been located just outside the south-south-east site boundary according to the OS Rural Place Map. There were no archaeological features visible within the proposed development site.
The extant building on the site consisted of a disused dwelling, which appeared to be of 19th/early 20th-century date. Immediately north of the dwelling was an associated outhouse. To the east of the dwelling was a driveway and overgrown lawn. According to a local person, a depression at the location known as ^Labbypatrick’ was filled in by the landowners in the 1940s. Another local heard stories of a large rock being removed from the spot to cover a drain a short distance away. The location of the feature is currently within a vegetable garden.
The testing consisted of the excavation (by machine) of two trenches located to best cover the accessible areas of the site; i.e. to the north-east, east and south of the extant dwelling. The trenches measured 43.5m and 25.8m long, 0.75–1.05m wide and 0.35–1m deep. Below the pea-gravel (of the existing driveway around the dwelling) and topsoil was fill and orange/brown loose sand and gravel (natural subsoil). The fill and the topsoil contained modern artefacts associated with the disused dwelling on the site. A ceramic sewer pipe crossed both trenches. Nothing of archaeological significance was revealed.