2010:597 - Grange, Sligo

On the hill to the north of Grange village is the deserted medieval Cistercian village (Carville 1990) from which it gets its name. It is also known as Grange Muintir Hart, alluding to the founding of the castle by the O’Hart family. Dates of ad 1526–1689 have been established for the castle, SL005–035. It is shown on the 1837 OS map but John O’Hart, author of the late 19th-century standard work on Irish pedigrees records in 1886, wrote 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).
The initial works concentrated on the restoration of the church (Excavations 2009, No. 724). In early 2010 trenching for storm-water, sewage and oil ducts for the church were monitored. Two minor spreads of shell were found on the south side of the church. There were no middens at the west end of the church. The sewage line from the new sacristy at the east to the sewage tank at the west was also monitored. Again some shells were found. What appeared to be the eastern north–south wall of the castle was found. This was 0.8m wide and 0.7m deep and was under 0.3m of soil. Its line was not found in diggings either to either north or south. This position suggests a castle measuring 22m east–west; the restoration works on the Parochial House may reveal its southern extent. The western half of this sewage trench was above the level of potential archaeology.
A third planning application, for a new funeral entrance, had been made in late 2009. An assessment recommended testing in such a way that the trenches would, if possible, be kept sufficiently high to avoid interfering with the underlying archaeology and then become the foundation trenches for the new roadside wall.
Since works in September 2009, a works entrance developed over the area of the castle and the central proposed test-trench. Thus, only two of the three proposed trenches were tested.
Trench FE 1, running eastwards towards the Parish Hall, was 25m long. The western 2.2m was that for the curving wall towards a proposed pillar. The last 5m had been resolved during the excavations close to the replacement sacristy. Three small middens of shells in poor condition were found. There were no finds which would date the shell middens. There were no human bones. The trench was not deep enough to encounter the foundations of the castle, even though a substantial foundation wall had been found less than 2m to the south on the previous day during excavation of a trench for a sewage pipe. The level of the top of this foundation wall was below that required for the new roadside wall. The material dug through in this trench had some modern items in it, suggesting that the ground had been turned over many times; several pipes servicing the church were in this area.
In Trench FE 2, which ran north-westwards towards the entrance to the national school, there were no middens, no finds and no human bones. The trench was deeper and lower than that in FE 1 but was not deep enough to encounter the foundations of the castle. The soil was very much in the nature of garden soil, loose, brown and including some modern rubbish.
These trenches had resolved the lines for the proposed side walls. The ground between the new wall and the present road needs to be dealt with at a later stage. The development works have been kept from interfering with the surviving archaeology of Grange Castle. Work on the Parochial House had not begun as of mid-February 2011.
References
Carville, G. 1990 A Cistercian grange and adventures of Captain Cuellar. Donegal Annual, 49–60.
O’Hart, J. 1923 Irish Pedigrees or the origin and stem of the Irish nation. Limited American ed.