2022:496 - WHITEHALL: Rincolisky Castle, Cork

An excavation was conducted immediately east of Rincolisky Castle in advance of an intended application for planning permission to construct an annexe to the castle. Foundations of former buildings were found abutting the wall of the tower house. Two main phases of construction were identified. Phase one was comprised of a bawn wall with a building within it, adjacent to the tower-house door.

The building had internal dimensions of 8.6m x 4.4m and is interpreted as the tower-house hall. The east-sloping bedrock had been cut into to create a level floor for the hall. Uneven bedrock midway along the north side of the building probably marked the location of the entrance, where steps could have led down to the interior from the higher bedrock outside. In that location the entrance would have faced the tower-house doorway. The hall was (re)roofed in the seventeenth century with locally quarried slate and imported North Devon glazed ridge tile. After the hall and the bawn wall had collapsed a new structure was built on the ruins. The Phase 2 walls were poorly preserved, but the entrance was clearly identifiable in the south wall, facing away from the tower house.

Inside the building, in the south-east corner, a D-shaped stone structure measuring 1m x 1m with burnt clay and charcoal within it may have been a bread oven. In the south-west corner, inside the doorway, there was a raised L-shaped platform approximately 0.3m high and measuring 5m x 3m with an eastwards extension of 1.9m x 2.5m. The platform was defined by a low dry stone wall and filled with broken slate and North Devon ridge tile. The purpose of this feature has not been established. The antiquity of this building is uncertain but an 18th-century date seems likely. In addition to the numerous fragments of slate and ridge tile, other artefacts recovered included just one sherd of domestic pottery (Frechen ware) two fragments of clay pipe stem, fragment of a hand quern, and fragment of a late medieval window jamb with punch dressing. None of these was found in a secure context. The dearth of domestic pottery of either the Phase 1 or Phase 2 activity was a surprising feature of the excavation.