Deserted Village Excavations 2008

Excavations during 2008 in the Deserted Villages centred on House 23, which has been under investigation since 2004. House 23 is located in the western village and consists of a small single roomed structure with opposing doorways located on the east and west walls. The two opposing doorways are connected by a substantial stone built drainage channel. The western doorway was blocked during the buildings occupation. The southern gable end has slightly rounded corners with traces of corbelling surviving towards the top of the walls. The northern gable end wall is inserted between the long walls indicating that the length of the building has been reduced at some stage. A fireplace and a stone bench are built into the northern wall. Beyond the northern wall the top of a curvilinear wall had been exposed and it was thought that this might be the original wall of the house prior. A large manure pit is located immediately south east of the structure and the village roadway runs to the south. Well defined garden plots are located to the north and west of the building and a small stream runs to the east. House 23 was originally chosen for excavation because of its low and ruinous state, much more ruinous than the adjacent buildings and indeed most of the other buildings on the mountain, was thought to indicate that the building may have been constructed at an early date within the overall settlements history. It was only during this year’s excavation that this question was definitively answered.

The interior of the house had largely been completed during the previous season and this year all that was left to complete were the drainage channels that cut through the buildings floor. A small section of a north south drainage channel had previously been exposed in the south of the building and it was suspected that this ran under, and was therefore earlier, than the east west drain that ran between the two doorways. Upon excavation this was proven to be correct and the earlier drain was followed into the northern part of the house where it split in to two shallow curving channels which formed a roughly circular arrangement around the northern part of the house. This curvilinear drainage pattern is highly unusual and is thought to relate to the earliest phase of the building.  

One of the most interesting parts of this years excavations was undertaken in the room located to the north of the inserted north gable wall, which was suspected to be the original end of the building. Prior to excavation this room was defined by a curvilinear row of boulders located about 1.5m north of the north gable end wall, taken to be the top of a wall. The space between the northern gable end and the curvilinear wall was entirely filled with rich organic soil. This back fill was removed from the eastern half of the room and the results were quite unexpected. The curvilinear wall was found to be very insubstantial, consisting of just three or four very rough courses of dry stone walling, very different from the well constructed house walls recorded elsewhere. The foundation cut was found to slope down at an angle rather than being vertical as had been expected and the base of the wall actually sits half way up this cut rather than at the base as had been expected. Where the curvilinear wall approaches the north eastern corner of the main building there is a gap to allow for access into the room from outside, and in this area the base of the eastern wall of the house can be seen extending a short distance beyond the inserted northern wall. As this extension of the eastern wall consists of the same quality of stonework as the rest of House 23 it conclusively proves that the curvilinear wall is not an original feature, but a later addition build up against the inserted northern wall. It is now thought that this room represents a roughly build lean-too outbuilding tagged onto the northern side of House 23 after it was shortened. The back fill of the room contained a deep layer of peat ash, and it is thought that the building was therefore used to store ash from the houses’ fire to be used as fertiliser on the gardens. The most interesting aspect of all this is that it seems that the lean-too ash house is actually re-occupying the original foundation cut of the house and that this too had been curvilinear in form. If this is correct then the original form of the building would not have been rectangular, but would have been sub-rectangular with straight walls and rounded corners. This is a very ancient design of building which is recorded all over the west of Ireland and in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Such buildings were present on Achill into the 20^th century but no standing example now exists. This is the first time that such an architectural style has been identified within the Deserted Villages of Slievemore and does indeed suggest that House 23 is older than its neighbouring structures.

Several other areas around House 23 were investigated during this season. The manure pit to the south east of the house was partially excavated and found to be different in form to those seen elsewhere within the villages, again supporting an earlier date for the construction of House 23. The majority of observable manure pits are horse shoe shaped in plan with vertical sides lined by well coursed dry stone walling. At House 23 the sides of the manure pit are much more gently sloping and do not appear to be lined with dry stone walling. However along the western side a row of substantial boulders appear to mark a revetment supporting a pathway that runs from the eastern door to the roadway to the south.

Also to the south of the building a substantial stone revetment was revealed, which runs roughly east to west for at least 9 metres. This revetment is either marking the down slope side of the village roadway which would then run between the south of House 23 and the revetment, or it is marking the upslope side of the roadway which would then run between the revetment and the garden plots further down slope. Locating the position of the roadway as it runs past House 23 will be one of the principal focuses of next season’s excavations.

Finally Excavations were under taken in the northern garden to attempt to locate the foundations of a building shown in this area on the 1838 Ordnance Survey Map but of which no traces are no visible above ground, and to examine a north to south field wall that runs through the area and was thought to be prehistoric in origin. Unfortunately despite digging trenches over a 50 square meter area no traces of the building were identified. This leads us to surmise that either there is an error in the 1838 OS Map or that the building was constructed in such a way as to be archaeologically invisible. The latter explanation seems unlikely because even the flimsiest of structures would have needed to have been terraced into the slope to provide a level floor surface, and even if no other part of the structure would have left identifiable remains, this terrace should have been encountered. Therefore it seems that there is indeed an error in the 1838 OS Map. Investigations of the field wall proved that rather than being prehistoric it was constructed in modern times to divide two areas of the northern garden. The wall consisted of large boulders set up right on the surface of the sub soil and held in place by a bank of small stones and soil. A large number of 19^th century sherds of pottery and fragments of glass were recovered from this material. It is also noted that the orientation of the lazy beds or cultivation ridges, changes on either side of the wall. The lazy beds run from north to south to the east of the wall and from east to west to the west of the wall. It is therefore thought that the wall marks a formal division within, and contemporary with, the northern garden, possibly arranged in this manner as part of the overall scheme of water management associated with House 23 and its gardens.

Copyright 2008 Achill Archaeological Field School.