2018:678 - Isert Kelly Castle, Galway

The aim of this excavation is to explore the archaeological evidence for structural remains and occupation deposits in the bawn beside the tower-house of Isert Kelly. Isert Kelly was selected for study because it is a well-preserved tower-house with substantial evidence for other structures around it. The tower-house, which is rectangular in plan and measures c.13m north-south by 10.8m, sits at the south-western corner of a square bawn, now defined by a grassy bank which covers the lower courses of the destroyed bawn wall. The remains of a large, rectangular stone-built structure can be seen in the south-eastern corner of the bawn and evidence for other structures may be seen across the site. This was the fifth season of excavation at Isert Kelly and it is planned to fully publish the results of the excavation after several further excavation seasons are completed.

Two trenches were opened during the 2018 excavation. Trench 4A measured 5m x 2m and targeted the tower-house’s latrine outfall. It partly overlapped with Trench 4 from 2017 in order to conclude the excavation of the latrine area, and it also extended the excavated area to the south. The most important feature of Trench 4/4a was the latrine outfall area itself, which was a confined space measuring c. 1.2m by 1.25m in plan. The space was defined by the tower-house to the west, the external façade of the bawn wall to the north, and two later walls to the east and south. It was c. 1.8m deep and was filled with a series of rich organic deposits containing numerous artefacts and significant volumes of faunal and molluscan remains. Excavation of these deposits revealed the latrine outfall, a large (1.25m wide x 1.25m high) lintelled opening at the base of the tower-house wall. The base of the outfall was formed with steeply sloping slabs to direct the waste material outwards from the latrine chute, but the chute is now blocked with waste material from the outfall upwards to a height of c. 10m above ground level. Evidence within the tower house suggests that the chute continued to be used as a waste chute for an extended period after it ceased to serve as a latrine chute in c. 1604 and indeed most of the excavated material from the outfall area appears to post-date this time.

The southern part of Trench 4A investigated the ‘plinth’ feature which wraps around the southern end of the tower-house. This level, raised grass-covered area abuts the southern wall of the tower-house, extends beyond it to east and west by a few meters, and is retained by a low concrete-capped wall. The function of this plinth is unclear, but it appears to act as a low buttress and may be a modern conservation feature rather than a late medieval or post-medieval structure. Removal of the uppermost layers of the feature revealed a layer of buried topsoil 0.55m below the surface of the ‘plinth’ and exposed the chamfer-stop at the base of the tower-house’s south-eastern corner.

Trench 6 measured 6m x 6m and investigated a rectangular building referred to as Structure 4. This building was created by the construction of two walls in the north-eastern corner of the bawn, the pre-existing bawn wall serving as the other two sides of the structure. The long axis of the building runs north-south, but the largest entranceway was found in the short southern wall instead of, as expected, in the longer western wall. This gable entranceway was originally c. 3m wide and had double doors, as two ‘spud stones’ were found, one on either side of the entranceway. The southern end of building was just 5.7m wide externally, and so the large double doorway clearly dominated the southern façade, suggesting that the building may have served as a cart-house, a barn or a similar agricultural building. A smaller gap in the western wall may have served as a smaller doorway. The building was in excess of 10m long (north-south) and it is planned to investigate the northern end of the structure in 2019.

Several changes were made to Structure 4 some time after it was first built, the most substantial of which is a 1m-thick cross wall which divides Structure 4 internally. It runs east-west from the inner face of the bawn wall to the inner face of the building’s western wall, but is not tied into either feature. It does not divide the internal area of Structure 4 evenly, but instead is located close to the southern end of the building. It may have been designed to shorten the structure, since no evidence was found for a doorway through it, and so it was probably designed to cut off the large southern doorway from the remainder of the structure, perhaps representing a change of use. The southern doorway was also narrowed from c. 3m to c. 2.1m at some point in the building’s history and the western spud stone seems to have been moved eastwards to facilitate the new arrangement. Within Structure 4, the most significant layer excavated was C.139/C.155, which produced nearly 30 post-medieval artefacts including pottery, glass and metal. This layer was interpreted as a post-medieval floor surface and occupation deposit within Structure 4. Beneath this layer, an extensive layer (C.157/C.169) appears to run under the western and southern walls of the building and so predates its construction. This layer had just two artefacts within it, a small piece of flat glass and an iron nail, and so it cannot provide good dating evidence for the construction of Structure 4, but it appears likely that the building dates to the post-medieval period.

Birchall, Oughterard, Co. Galway