2013:140 - CULLEENAMORE, Sligo

Planning permission was granted for the demolition of a vacant, probable 19^th-century house.  Demolition took place in August 2013. It was discovered that the rear eastern part of the house was an addition and also that the original house faced eastwards; there is no record as to when it was changed to face westwards. With the existing house cleared it was possible to see that the ground had been considerably altered with the north part of the site dug into for the first phase of the house. For convenience ‘Site North’, the back of the site, is used though it is actually north-east.

The line of the front wall of the new house is 25m back from the edge of an eroded sea cove, protected for over a century by stone cladding; it is not possible to see if there is midden here. The spot height on this road is 20ft OD, but in reality that point is no more than 2m above the highest tides.

The trenches for the house were 0.9m wide and 0.6m deep. The northern 4/5 of the site proved to be archaeologically sterile, reaching into natural gravel with large stones and rocks. In the southern 1/5 of the site a considerable oyster midden was exposed. This takes in almost the full 14m east-west front foundations of the house. In the north-south direction the edge of the midden curves from zero at the west to 5m north-south in the middle of the site and back to 3m north-south at the east. The excavation of the north-south trenches suggested several distinct middens, but excavation of the east-west trenches showed that this is one continuous midden.

As there were oyster shells at the bottom of the 0.6m-deep foundation trench the engineer decided that it was not safe to build on the deposits and required that the foundations go down as far as the gravel layer that had been reached on 4/5 of the site. Alternatives to digging out the shells from the trenches, piling, rafting, etc., were considered but each was dismissed because of engineering costs and equally for archaeological considerations.

The shells were dug out in the south-east corner for the house until gravel was reached at 2m below the present surface. The maximum stratification of oyster shells is 1.4m.

The vertical sections of the trenches were recorded. Samples were taken for analysis and dating. The underlying gravel is dropping in this area, suggesting an even greater depth of shells further south.

The shells are almost entirely oyster, with a few periwinkle and single specimens of three other types. There were no bones and no artefacts whatsoever. Several black spreads, hearths, were found. Some of these, particularly in the south-east corner, have fire-cracked stones in them, as if forming a surround to a fire. The basal layer of some hearths contained some burnt shell.

When the record was completed the sides of the trenches were lined with plastic sheeting to protect the archaeology and also the roots of adjacent mature trees from the chemical reaction from the concrete. The foundations and the slab for the house were poured and the construction of the house got underway. Works for the services are planned for 2014.

The progress of the excavation was reported a number of times to the National Monuments Service. Continuation of the development was allowed with archaeological monitoring with excavation where necessary for any works around the house where digging is involved. Works requiring intermittent archaeological attention will continue into summer 2014 and extension of the licence for that has been granted.

Comment
Oyster middens are exposed at many points along this northern side of Ballisodare Bay in Culleenamore and Culleenduff to the east. Local opinion is that the midden is practically continuous along this side of the bay, with oyster shells to be found in every garden. The same pattern is to be seen in Tanrego East, Tanrego West, Carrownacreevy and Ballinlig townlands along the opposite, southern shore of Ballisodare Bay. Most shell middens along this shore are prehistoric. Recent work by Burenhult (SL013-091, 1984), Milner and Woodman 2007 and Woodman and Milner 2013 (SL013-117 and SL014-138, see also Ó Muraíle 2013 on the name of Sligo) produced dates from the Neolithic to the Medieval.

In the current example the northern edge of the shells thins out in a fashion that suggests this is the northern extent of this midden. An isolated midden was found in the field to the north. The quantity of oyster shells implies intense human activity over a long period and that people were coming and going in this area for a long time. Lenses of soil might suggest abandonment but the people could have moved along the midden for periods of time; C14 may clarify.

The Griffith Valuation records an active oyster fishery ‘adjoining Culleenamore’, one of many active in the late 19^th centuy (see also McTernan 1990, 86-88), so not all of the shell middens need be ‘ancient’. Dennis Mannion of nearby Carrowdough daily collected cockels on Culleenamore Strand in recent decades. This suggestion of a modern date for the use of oysters in quantity in this area would not be unusual. In late 2012 pieces of a milk cooling dish were found with oyster shells on Harmony Hill in Sligo town, four miles away: 11E0262(?). A wellington boot and a bicycle chain were found with shells while monitoring at Graigue?, about two miles away several years ago. However, Leo Leydon (pers. comm.) distinguishes between ‘white middens’ i.e., mainly of oyster shells, and ‘rock middens’, i.e., cockels, periwinkles, barnachs, etc. The modern inclusions in the surface of oyster shells here probably came from 19^th– and 20^th-century occupation of the site. It seems that the remainder is entirely prehistoric in date. There are several houses of the last few centuries along this coast and there is a souterrain, Sl.013-88, built into a midden mound in a field to the west, an indication of people living here in early medieval times.