2020:311 - Claregalway Castle, Claregalway (BAILE CHLÁIR), Galway

This programme of archaeological test excavation targeted a ruinous building which stands immediately to the north-west of the tower-house at Claregalway Castle. The western wall of the building was known to stand on the line of the castle’s bawn wall, while a ruined post-medieval mural bread oven is found in the south-western corner of the structure. A blocked gateway in the western wall appears to have served as a postern gateway into the bawn.

Two test trenches, each measuring 2m x 2m, were excavated manually in the interior of the building. Trench 1, at the southern end of the structure, targeted the area close to the ruined bread oven and an adjacent fireplace, while Trench 2 targeted the area immediately inside the postern gateway. The bawn wall was found to underlie the western wall of the building in both areas, the later wall having been built upon the sub-surface footings of the bawn wall in the post-medieval period. The stratigraphy in Trench 1 consisted of nineteen layers, deposits, cuts and structures which appear to post-date 1700, ten earlier deposits which post-date the construction of the bawn wall, the bawn wall itself and several related features, and an earlier wall which appears to pre-date the bawn wall but which could not be fully investigated.

In the northern part of the ruined building, where the floor levels were reduced some years ago, the excavation of Trench 2 produced less complex stratigraphy. The bawn wall was found along the western side of the trench, while a cobbled surface extended across the remainder. This surface was surprising for two reasons – it appeared to extend under the bawn wall and it featured a distinct east-west alignment of stones within it, which may represent a kerb or the edge of an earlier wall. If this feature is interpreted as a kerb, it could be said to define the southern edge of a pathway leading to/from a postern gateway immediately to the west. Alternatively, if it is interpreted as a wall footing, it appears likely to represent an early wall, almost perfectly parallel to the early wall in Trench 1, which runs under the bawn wall to the west. The stones exposed in Trench 2, both in the bawn wall and in the cobbled surface, though naturally rounded, were remarkably smooth and appear to have been worn smooth by their exposure to pedestrian traffic over an extended period.

Oughterard, Co Galway