2011:597 - ST MARY’S ABBEY, GLENCAIRN, Waterford

An assessment was carried out of a proposed development at St Mary’s Abbey, Glencairn. The site is a recorded monument (WA020-014) and is listed in County Waterford’s Record of Protected Structures (Record No. 213; NIAH Registration No. 22902005). St Mary’s Abbey can trace its origins to the early 1600s, when it was constituted as the fortified residence, known as ‘Ballygarron Castle’, of Piers Power and his wife Elizabeth Boyle, sister to the first earl of Cork. The castle survives to at least its original first-floor level, and its ground floor now forms the basement of the north-east sector of Glencairn Abbey. At least 30m and one turret of the enclosing bawn wall survive to the south of the castle.
Eight test trenches were excavated as part of a programme of testing to determine the impact the development might have on the remains of Ballygarron Castle and to provide insights into the original design of the castle, which is unclear because of the substantial 18th- to 20th-century building developments which have taken place, including the conversion of the complex into an abbey in the 1920s.
Test trench 1 was placed against the eastern wall of the 1927–32 north wing of the abbey to determine the 17th-century ground level and the presence or absence of any associated layers and/or masonry from this period. According to written sources, the area had been raised substantially, by around ‘ten or twelve feet’, in c. 1787 to raise the ground level to create an embattled terrace, which is now in front of the north wing. The test trench was 2.5m long x 1m wide and was excavated to a depth of 2.2m (the limit of the JCB’s reach). It contained a single, massive dump of rubble stone, hand-built brick, pottery and yellowish-brown gritty clay, which was probably material that was dumped in the late 18th century.
Test trench 2 was positioned at the suspected north-west corner of Ballygarron Castle and its interface with the north-eastern wall of the 1927–32 north wing of the abbey. It was also excavated to allow for an inspection of the wall and to determine the contemporary ground level. The trench was an L-shape, 3.6m east–west and 2.05m north–south (max.). It was excavated to a maximum depth of 2.1m. A 2.6m length of castle wall was exposed to the level of its foundations at 1.9m (37.85m OD) below modern ground level. It was offset by 0.14m from the wall above and was of uncoursed, mortared limestone rubble. The base of the footings was not reached in the cutting but was traced to a depth of 0.3m, and the level of the foundations was 1.2m above the level of the bedrock inside the building, indicating that the ground level on the outside was also higher in the 17th century. An external splayed gun-port extending through the wall was uncovered 0.75m above the foundation level. It had been blocked with a sandy mortar, probably during the late 18th or early 19th century. Abutting the north wall and its foundations, and probably blocking a rectangular slit-window 1.2m to the east, was an 18th–19th-century segmental arched passage of coursed rubble limestone and siltstone construction, with occasional hand-made brick fragments.
Trenches 3–5 were excavated to assess the potential impact on buried archaeology of the proposed new guesthouse in the south of the abbey. The area is a hillocky field outside the fortified house’s defences and the guesthouse will be built within 25m of the standing corner turret on the bawn wall. Test trenches 6–8 were positioned to assess the potential impact on buried archaeology of the proposed wastewater treatment system. The trenches were positioned on either side of a track in pasture 150m downslope to the east of the abbey. Nothing of archaeological significance was found in any of these trenches.
This limited test excavation, examination of wall masonry and the written vestiges of Ballygarron raise as many questions as answers, but the work has assisted in clarifying aspects of the castle’s plan and the potential extent of the surviving early modern fabric within the site. The castle’s basic plan was a rectangle with a stair-turret of probable D-shaped plan adjoining the south-west corner of the castle. This compares well with contemporary castles like Ballyannan, Co. Cork, and Salterstown, Co. Fermanagh. The main body of the building had internal dimensions of 12m x 6.6m and walls 1.65m thick. The ground floor was defensive and probably lit solely by slit-opes and gun-ports, externally splayed for visual effect. The loops looked out over the sharp escarpment on which the northern wall of the castle was built. This wall and presumably all the walls both inside and out were covered in a wet dash (harling) of fine whitewashed lime-mortar. It was probably entered through the north gable and the building was probably of two storeys with an attic. The first floor was carried on stone corbels—there was no vault—and would have been more commodious. There is not enough evidence available to allow for an accurate reconstruction of the early modern plan of the bawn, but based on contemporary analogies and the local topography it was probably an L-shaped enclosure, with the castle occupying its north-east corner.

Kilkenny Archaeology, Threecastles, Co. Kilkenny