2013:027 - St Columb, Derry

An evaluative excavation was carried out close to St Brecan’s Church in St Columb’s Park, Derry. The purpose of the work was to investigate the archaeological potential of the site, one of five which were possible candidates for three ‘community dig’ excavations, all Northern Ireland Environment Agency events which were to be held as part of the City of Culture 2013 celebrations. The evaluation work followed a programme of geophysical survey undertaken by Ronan McHugh, which identified a number of targets for further investigation. Four trenches were located over these anomalies in an area between 10m and 40m to the south of the church site. Trenches 1-4 each measured 3m x 1m and were hand excavated to subsoil. No archaeological remains associated with St Brecan’s Church were uncovered. The remains exposed instead are likely to relate to more recent landscaping and cultivation of the area.          

The present church is likely to have been built around the end of the 16^th century, during the time that Redmond O’Gallagher was bishop of Derry (1569-1601) and had gone out of use by the early 17^th century. It is clear, however, that there were churches on the site prior to this and it has even been suggested that the site is a Patrician foundation. St Brecan’s Church has been identified as Domnach Minchluaine (i.e. Clooney), one of the seven churches which St Patrick founded near the Faughan River as detailed in the Tripartite Life of St Patrick (Hamiln 1976, 561). St Columbkille is also historically linked to the church and it has been suggested that he dedicated the church in Clooney to the service of God in the name of his relative St Brecan, who became the patron saint of the parish (Anon 1902, 284). In 1197 the Four Masters record that, along with other churches in the area, St Brecan’s was plundered by Roitsel Peyton. The church is mentioned in Archbishop Colton’s Visitation of 1397, where it is recorded that an altar was prepared outside the west door of the church so that mass could be celebrated in front of thousands of people in order to purify the burial ground around the church which had been defiled by the spilling of blood (Reeves 1850, 31). According to O’Donnell’s ‘Life of St Columba’, Nicholas Weston, Bishop of Derry (1466-1484) tried to take the building down in order to reuse the stone to build a house, however, the scheme had to be abandoned due to a curse pronounced by St Columbcille on anyone attempting to destroy the church (Anon 1902, 283). By the 18^th century the ruined church lay within the demesne of Chatham House, built by John Rea, a naval officer who constructed the building now known as St Columb’s Park House (listed HB 1/9/1). His daughter married Sir George Hill around 1830 and so the estate and ruined church were in the ownership of the Hill family of Brook Hall. St Columb’s Park was bought by the Londonderry Corporation in 1845 and it is now used as a public park (historic garden inventory no. L-050).

The excavation uncovered two features (in Trenches 2 and 4) for which it is not possible to suggest a function. Both were subsoil cut, appear to be linear and aligned approximately north-south, and are backfilled with topsoil. No finds were recovered from either feature. A metalled pathway, skirting the base of the mound on which the church is located, was uncovered in Trench 1 and is likely to relate to the use of the area as parkland for Chatham House. Unfortunatley, no remains associated with the church were encountered in any of the trenches during the excavation. Some artefacts recovered, for example medieval Ulster Coarseware sherds and sherds of stoneware, hint at the antiquity of the site. No further light has been shed, however, on the extent or nature of any remains associated with the ecclesiastical foundation. The evaluation did highlight that this area within St Columb’s Park has been cultivated in the past and indeed ridge and furrow lines are visible on the ground surface. It is difficult to say when this is likely to have happened, as it is seems improbable that it would have been cultivated whilst in use as a demesne.

Bibliography

Anon. 1902: ‘Proceedings’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries Ireland 32, 283-284.

Hamiln, A.E. 1976: The Archaeology of Early Christianity in the Northern of Ireland, unpublished PhD thesis, QUB.

Reeves, W. 1850: Acts of Archbishop Colton in his metropolitan visitation of the Diocese of Derry: AD MCCCXCVII. Irish Archaeological Soicety, Dublin.

Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast