2021:721 - Gortnacrannagh 6, Roscommon

Gortnacrannagh 6 was excavated in advance of construction of the N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge Road Project in County Roscommon by Archaeological Management Solutions (AMS) for Roscommon County Council (RCC) and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII). The site consisted of a T-plan vernacular structure and a segment of roadway that formed part of an extensive field system associated with the house. The structure is marked on the first-edition six-inch Ordnance Survey (OS) map (1838) and recorded in the Environmental Impact Assessment Report as CHC 39 (Roughan & O’Donovan-AECOM 2017). Its presence was suggested by a 1730 estate map (Moland & Hogan 1730, 12), which depicted a group of dwellings in the approximate area corresponding with Gortnacrannagh 6. The structure was not depicted on the 25-inch OS map (1914).

Historical records show evidence for habitation in the townland from as early as the mid-seventeenth century, although none of the recorded individuals could be connected with any certainty to the dwelling at Gortnacrannagh 6. In the early nineteenth century the residents were likely tenants of the Conrys of Bettyfield House in Shankill townland. A large assemblage of artefacts, including clay tobacco pipes, shards of glass bottles, sherds of both imported refined earthenware and locally made coarseware pottery, fragments of iron and copper-alloy objects and fragments of a possible school slate, was recovered from the site. These artefacts have been analysed by the relevant specialists and date from between the eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries.

The excavated structure was a T-plan stone-built house aligned east–west with a northern outshot. It had an extent of 18.5m by 5.2m east–west. The northern projection was c.5.2m east–west and a minimum of 4.6m north–south. Evidence for a hearth was uncovered against the northern wall and cobbling was noted in the eastern section of the main structure as well as in the northern abutting room. Artefactual evidence pointed to the presence of equines, both ponies and horses, the latter of which were likely used for ploughing the associated field system. The dwelling was demolished before the surveying of the 1914 OS map, the residents of Gortnacrannagh 6 did not appear to remain at the site into the post-Famine period.

References 

Moland, T. & Hogan, G. 1730. A booke of maps of the estate of the Right Honourable the Earl of Mountrath in the Kingdom of Ireland taken anno domini 1730. [Atlas-Online]. Available at: https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/tt44pp55m?locale=fr [Accessed: February 2023]. 

Roughan & O’Donovan-AECOM. 2017. N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge Road Project Environmental Impact Assessment Report. TII and Roscommon National Road Design Office. Available at: http://www.roscommoncoco.ie/en/Services/Roads/Publications-and-Information/N5-Ballaghaderreen-to-Scramoge-Road-Project/Environmental-Impact-Assessment-Report/Volume-2B-EIAR-Chapter-11-19/00-EIAR.pdf. [Accessed: 29 January 2021]. 

Archaeological Management Solutions, Fahy's Road, Kilrush, Co. Clare