County: Cork Site name: MOGEELY LOWER
Sites and Monuments Record No.: CO046-007 Licence number: 11E0122
Author: Eamonn Cotter
Site type: Post-medieval house and ditches
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 595708m, N 594028m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.098146, -8.062642
Test trenching was carried out on the site of a proposed new house and ancillary works in July 2011, followed by full excavation of the area comprising the footprint of the proposed house.
The site is located on a slight eminence overlooking the Bride River valley. The medieval castle of Mogeely (CO046-007) stands c. 50m to the north-west. The ruined church of Mogeely (CO046-00802) stands at the centre of a graveyard (CO046-00801) c. 120m to the south. A late 16th-century map shows houses to the east and north-east of the site. Other houses shown on that map were investigated by Erik Klingelhofer in the 1990s on a site (CO046-072) located c. 120m to the south, directly west of the church (Excavations 1991, no. 27). The first-edition 6in. OS map shows a house a short distance to the east of the proposed development. An early 20th-century cottage stands on the site and is to be incorporated into the new development.
Mogeely Castle is believed to date from the 13th century, and was occupied down to the 18th. It was originally in the possession of the Norman FitzGerald dynasty but in 1586, as part of the Munster Plantation, it was granted to Sir Walter Raleigh, who commissioned a map of the estate which still survives.
The test trenches revealed evidence for at least one house, most likely that which was depicted on the first-edition OS 6in. map. The features included a hearth, part of a floor surface and traces of wall foundations. Finds included twenty sherds of 18th/19th-century pottery. A number of linear ditches were also found. Some of these probably represented enclosures around the 18th-century house. Others might have been dug during the four-month siege of the nearby castle, which is said to have taken place in 1599.
The excavation, which was carried out in November 2011, was confined to an area slightly larger than the footprint of the new house. Two features were found, both ditches which had previously been noted in the testing. Sherds of 18th/19th-century pottery and fragments of slate indicated that they were contemporary with the house foundations which had been found in the testing.
Ballynanelagh, Rathcormac, Co. Cork
