County: Roscommon Site name: Ballintober Castle
Sites and Monuments Record No.: RO027-048002- Licence number: 15E0232 ext.
Author: Niall Brady
Site type: Castle and precinct
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 572554m, N 774806m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.722198, -8.415851
A seventh season of excavation and survey took place in 2023 at Ballintober Castle, Co. Roscommon, RO027-048002-, as part of the archaeological and anthropological research and summer fieldschool project, Castles in Communities, Archaeological Settlement Studies project (CICASS).
Excavation took place within the standing castle at Cutting 3, which is placed in the original entrance area along the eastern perimeter wall.
Prior to the cutting being started in 2019, the location was surveyed in detail using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). Cutting 3 measures 20m long by 6m wide and is extended along the long axis of the entrance, purposefully chosen to expose the side walls of the entrance towers that define the entrance, and the central path of the entrance itself.
The observation made in 2019 that the entrance structure represents at least two phases of construction continues to be observed, and a cobbled surface was recorded in 2022 at a depth of 700mm from the ground level. The cobbled surface slopes from west to east and is incomplete.
Work in 2023 confirmed a lower edge to the base of both the north and the south towers. The features may have served as foundations to the standing walls of the entrance towers as well as indicating the presence of some earlier structure on which the standing north and south towers were then built.
Excavation to reveal the cobbled surface between the two towers confirmed that it is a sealed layer associated with the entrance path itself. It is now also possible to consider that the entrance may retain a drawbridge pit.
Excavation over the western half of the cutting remains stratigraphically higher. A central drain feature identified in 2022 was further resolved in 2023. Additionally, it is possible to indicate an incomplete pebbled surface that appears to have served as an interior courtyard surface leading into the main ward of the castle’s interior. A block of bonded masonry exposed in the north-west corner of the cutting was investigated further and appears to be associated with an expansive burnt spread.
Geophysical survey for the wider project in 2023 comprised two additional grids of ground-penetrating radar data collected – one directly to the east of the castle entranceway, and a second grid acquired within the handball alley built along the east wall to the north of the entranceway.
The 2023 project report will be available online through the CICASS portal, which hosts all previous annual project reports: https://sites.google.com/view/irelandcastlesincommunities/home
Image caption: Cutting 3, detail
Archaeological Diving Company Ltd (ADCO)
