2022:116 - Caherconnell, Clare

Four drystone enclosures or cashels occur in the townland of Caherconnell in the Burren, Co. Clare. Two have already been excavated (10E119 and 10E0087), with this example situated between these two. The cashel is sub-circular and now defined by a collapsed dry stone wall of 35m maximum external diameter. Much of the stone from the cashel wall has clearly been removed and ‘recycled’, for use either in later enclosures or field walls. Its entrance faces south-east. Excavation is by the Caherconnell Archaeology Field School.

The 2022 target (Cutting A) is a cutting comprising the south-eastern quadrant of the cashel interior, measuring a maximum of 12m by 12m. It was designed to explore the cashel entrance and identify any surviving features in this area. The chance of recovering undisturbed evidence from early occupation layers of the cashel was thought strongest here, due to a possible greater depth of stratigraphy trapped within a dip in the underlying limestone bedrock.

Three main archaeological phases have been identified. It can be stated with a high degree of confidence that these phases date to the prehistoric (probably Early Bronze Age), early medieval (possibly 7th/8th century AD), and post-medieval/early modern periods. It is envisaged that further relative dating (artefact typology) and absolute dating (radiocarbon) will facilitate refinement of this stratigraphic sequence.

PHASE 1: Evidence of this phase comprised a concentration of prehistoric material culture preserved beneath the cashel and associated remains. A layer containing plentiful evidence of in situ knapping (mostly chert, some flint; finished artefacts including scrapers and barbed-and-tanged arrowheads), along with axe fragments and pot sherds (very degraded), concentrated in a quarried depression in the bedrock.

PHASE 2: Phase 2 comprises the drystone enclosure and stratigraphically associated layers and features. The enclosure appears to be an Early Medieval cashel, complete with double-faced wall and south-eastern entrance. An entrance path, some possible levelling inside the cashel wall, three groups of large stones, and possibly a post-setting were excavated. Material culture from this phase comprised an assemblage of animal bone, metalworking slag, and small finds including iron knives and nails, whetstones, fragments of hair comb, a bone pin, lignite-bracelet fragments, and a small decorated bronze fitting.

PHASE 3: Phase 3 was represented by evidence of post-primary use of the enclosure, primarily for animal management purposes and as a source of building stone, for the adjacent late 10th-century Caherconnell cashel (10E0087) and/or surrounding field walls of unknown/varied date. Initially, it appears that the entire enclosure was intact enough to act as a corral/small field while, at a later stage, tumbled stones formed ramps over the remaining cashel wall and smaller pens/structures were built within the enclosure, adjoining/re-using the general spread of cashel-wall material.

Archaeology, School of Geography, Archaeology, and Irish Studies, University of Galway