2009:724 - GRANGE, Sligo

Three parochial buildings, the Catholic church (built not long before 1856), the parochial house of 1875 and the temperance hall of 1903, are at the west end of Grange village. To the north of these, particularly to the north of the church, is a castle site, SL005–035. Planning permissions for renovation of the church and house required monitoring. Works in 2009 were confined to the church and its surroundings and access over the castle site.
On the hill to the north is the deserted medieval Cistercian village (Carville 1990) from which the village gets its name. The head of a single-light window, probably from the castle, was incorporated into the wall of a now-demolished shed to the north of the castle location (noted by Leo Morahan in Excavations 2001, No. 370, 01E1033). Grange is also known as Grange Muintir Hart, an allusion to the foundation of the castle by the O’Hart family. There are established dates of 1526 to 1689 for the castle. The castle is shown on the 1837 OS map but there is no aboveground evidence today except for stones reused in the boundary walls. The castle was a convenient source of building material and confirmation of this comes from John O’Hart’s late 19th-century standard work on Irish pedigrees. He came from Dublin in 1886 and met James O’Hart of Grange, who told him that the O’Hart family castle was recently razed to supply stones for the castle, the priest’s house and the surrounding walls (O’Hart 1923, I, 683).
Initially a monitoring licence was taken out due to the closeness to the castle site. The licence was changed to excavation status as shell middens were encountered in the ground clearance for the replacement sacristy. During the works in 2009 fifteen small shell middens of various sizes were excavated east and north of the church and under the east end of the church. These were of oyster, cockle and periwinkle. Most of those found probably date to the time of the castle. A single piece of medieval pottery, decorated with nail scratches on the flat surface of the slightly expanded rim, found near one of the middens does not prove that the midden is of that date. Comparable pottery is extremely rare, if it exists at all, on Sligo sites. A fragment of a thin clay-pipe stem and a shard of a ?milk-cooling dish of 19th/20th-century date found with two other separate middens may associate those two middens with the building of the church. The use of shellfish has a long antiquity stretching from the Neolithic to the present.
On the seventh day on site about 30 bones were discovered neatly stacked together against the north wall of the church under a concrete surface and no more than 0.15m below the modern ground level. As some of these were clearly human and because of their ^near surface’ level, the Garda( were informed and the discovery was reported in local media the next day and subsequently. Rather by accident than by design, the deposit included an animal tooth and other animal bones.
The bones were examined in the State Pathologist’s office by Laureen Buckley. She recognised less than twenty human bones from at least two individuals. There are two right and two left femurs in the deposit and it is possible that these could be from four individuals, but there is not sufficient evidence to make this judgement. Buckley considers that a young adult is represented, that at least one individual is male and one is female and that the bones are at least 100 years old; the level of wear of the teeth indicates that they are not modern but are probably of late medieval date.
The bones had been reburied here after the laying of a cobbled path along the north side of the church. We only know that the path is secondary to the building of the church, which was there in 1856.
Subsequently, Fiona Beglane of the Institute of Technology in Sligo examined all the other bones found during the work already done on the site. Two bones were considered to be human and this was confirmed by Buckley. One of these bones is significant, as its find place offers a possible explanation for the bones found against the wall of the church.
This was the first bone that was picked up in disturbed soil at the east end of a cable trench near the back road on the day that works began and several days before the main deposit was exposed. One could speculate that the deposit of human bone along the church wall came from near the roadside and had been respectfully reburied right up against the sacred building. If this is so, then the rest of the remains of at least two humans would probably still be in that area.
Following on media reports of the discovery, a number of explanations were floated by the locals in the Grange area. One man recollected hearing from his grandmother about a body being found down on the ^Streedagh shore’ or thereabouts two or three generations ago and that the bones were buried against the north wall of the church at the time when the path was being put in. This does not match the evidence.
The report by the forensic anthropologist for the Garda( established that the bones are not recent. The dental record suggests that the bones are from a human that died over a hundred years ago and that they ^indeed may be late medieval in date’.
The only modern grave plots in the grounds are two recent burials of priests. Very few of the in-use Catholic churches in County Sligo have attached graveyards (Mary B. Timoney, pers. comm.) so modern burials would not be expected.
History may hold a record which is relevant. Revd William Henry writing in 1739 [National Archives of Ireland, Dublin, M 2533, 19–20] commented that ^Four Miles Northward from Drumclive Runs the small River of Grange, at the entrance of which into the sea are got a few Salmon and good Oysters. At this Village stood a Strong Old Castle, which in 1689 was Garrisoned by King James’s Soldiers – a small party of Enniskilleners passing that way, made a shew of Attacking it. One of them going under the Wall of the Castle, threw a Granade in at a small Window; it unluckily fell into the Powder Room which in a Moment Blew up the Castle from the Foundation and all the Garrison, Except one Man who was dugg half Dead out of the Ruins.’ Those human remains may still be on site.

Works are continuing in 2010 and one foundation wall in the area of the castle was discovered.
References
Carville, G. 1990 A Cistercian grange and adventures of Captain Cuellar. Donegal Annual, 49–60. Henry, W. 1739 Hints towards a Natural
Topographical History of the Counties Sligoe,
Donegal, Fermanagh and Lough Erne by the Revd
William Henry, M.A., Rector of Killasher in
Fermanagh and Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of
Kilmore. National Archives of Ireland, M 2533
and Armagh Public Library MS G.I.14.
O’Harte, J. 1923 Irish Pedigrees or The Origin and Stem of The Irish Nation. Limited American ed.