2017:289 - Murphystown Castle, Glencairn, Dublin

The site is bounded to the west and north-west by the LUAS Green Line, by a stream and the M50 motorway to the north, and a series of residential estates to the east and south. The testing was undertaken to establish an appropriate zone of exclusion around Murphystown Castle, and to investigate the possible extent, character and date of any extant archaeological remains.

The assessment was informed by an earlier phase of testing by Red Tobin (see 2017:095), which focused on areas to the south and east of the castle. The work established that the castle was constructed sometime between the late 12th and the end of the 13th century, and was set atop an outcropping knoll of granite bedrock that comprised the highest point in the local landscape. Gaps and fissures in the bedrock were filled with a mix of compacted soil, lime mortar, and granite cobbles, which created a level bedding surface for the ensuing building works. The castle walls were constructed from roughly-hewn boulders of coarse-grained granite that were set directly on top of the prepared surface, and were quarried from seams of bedrock to the rear of the structure. These large, deep, open pits would have provided an extra defensive level outside the castle’s southern walls, while foundations uncovered to the west indicated that a protective bawn wall originally enclosed the castle to the east, north and west. No occupational levels were identified within the interior, which suggested that the occupants probably resided above ground level, and that the ground floor was used as a barn and storage area.

It is unclear how long Murphystown Castle was occupied; a drawing by Gabriel Beranger indicates that it was in ruins by 1775, however, the 18th-century remains were considerably more intact than the structure we see today.

The testing demonstrated that a substantial proportion of this stone was robbed-out in the first half of the 19th century, probably for reuse as building material for Glencairn House to the south-east. The evidence for this activity was revealed in the form of deep deposits of crushed granite and mortar, which also produced fragments of 19th-century glass and ceramics. The ground to the east of the castle was scarped down to the level of the bedrock, and this was then quarried for additional building material. Following on from this, the castle was incorporated into the formal gardens of the estate, and both the ruins and their surrounding area were remodelled to accentuate their picturesque and romantic qualities. Deposits were introduced to raise the ground level behind the standing walls to the south, while the natural incline towards the castle from the north and west was similarly exaggerated. A stone setting was inserted beneath the large hole in the southern wall of the castle, and a dry stone wall, running from north to south, was built up against the made ground to the rear. The landscaping thus transformed the ruins into a centrepiece of the Glencairn estate.

Post-excavation work for the site is ongoing.

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