County Cork and Environs

Archaeological Journal ISSN: 0066-5983 (Print) 2373-2288 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raij20 County Cork and Environs To cite this article: (2018) County Cork and Environs, Archaeological Journal, 175:sup1, 1-73, DOI: 10.1080/00665983.2018.1477561 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.2018.1477561 Published online: 03 Aug 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 48 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=raij20 Archaeological Journal, 2018 Vol. 175, No. S1, 1–73, https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.2018.1477561 THE INSTITUTE’S 2017 SUMMER MEETING County Cork and Environs Report and Proceedings of the 163rd Summer Meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute in 2017 by Dr Rachel Swallow with contributions by Professor Emeritus Howard B. Clarke; Roland Crosskey and Sue Shaw; Professor William O’Brien; Dr Tomás Ó Carragáin; Dr Colin Rynne; Denise Sheehan; Sheila Wild Edited by Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito A View of Cork from Audley Place, John Butts (c. 1728–1765), c. 1750. Oil on canvas, 72.5 x 120cm. Collection: Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Donated by the McCarthy family, 2005. Reproduced with kind permission of Crawford Art Gallery. © 2018 Royal Archaeological Institute 2 c o u n t y c o r k a nd en v i r o n s The Royal Archaeological Institute was founded in 1844 and plays a leading role in stimulating research and interest in the past. It communicates the results of research in archaeology, art and architectural history, and the historic environment to a broad public through lectures, conferences, field-meetings and its publications. The Institute has a substantial membership and welcomes applications from those wishing to join. Details can be obtained from: The Administrator The Royal Archaeological Institute c/o Society of Antiquaries Burlington House Piccadilly London W1J OBE CON TEN TS The Institute’s 2017 Summer Meeting RACHEL SWALLOW Introduction RACHEL SWALLOW Cork City HOWARD B. CLARKE Clashanimud Hillfort, Knockavilla, County Cork WILLIAM O’BRIEN Castlenalact Stone Row, County Cork WILLIAM O’BRIEN Drombeg Stone Circle, County Cork SHEILA WILD Lisnacaheragh, Garranes, County Cork WILLIAM O’BRIEN The Early Medieval Monastery of Toureen Peakaun, County Tipperary TOMÁS Ó CARRAGÁIN Glanworth Castle, County Cork TOMÁS Ó CARRAGÁIN Kilcrea Friary and Castle, County Cork DENISE SHEEHAN Waterford’s Medieval Museum ROLAND CROSSKEY AND SUE SHAW The Royal Gunpowder Mills, Ballincollig, County Cork COLIN RYNNE county cork and e nv ir ons 3 THE INSTITU TE’ S 2 0 1 7 S U M M E R M E E T I N G County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and southernmost county of Ireland. It is situated in the province of Munster and named after the city of Cork (Irish: Corcaigh), the second city of the Republic of Ireland. Touching on its environs, the Institute’s 2017 Summer Meeting sought to explore the rich and diverse archaeology, history and heritage of the county and its environs. The meeting was led by Hedley Swain (RAI Meetings Secretary) and administered by Caroline Raison (RAI Assistant Meetings Secretary).Thanks are due to Hedley and Caroline, as well as many others, including Professor William O’Brien, Dr Tomás Ó Carragáin, Dr Colin Rynn and Dr John Sheehan, all of the University College Cork. Thanks are also extended to all those who have kindly contributed papers to this volume. t h e da i l y s ch e d ul e of v i s i ts Sunday 9 July Monday 10 July Tuesday 11 July Wednesday 12 July Thursday 13 July Friday 14 July North of Cork/Tipperary Labbacallee wedge tomb; Toureen; Rock of Cashel; Glanworth Castle City of Cork Cork Museum; St Finbar’s Cathedral; University College Cork; Cork walking tour (Viking, medieval, early modern) Mid Cork Area Clashanimud Bronze Age Hillfort; Castlenalact Bronze Age stone row; Garranes medieval royal ring fort; Kilcrea medieval friary; Kilcrea medieval tower house/castle; Ballincollig royal gunpowder mills Coast, West Castle Townshend, church and village; Drombeg stone circle; Timoleague Abbey, Kinsale; Estuary boat trip; Charles Fort and James Fort Waterford Medieval Museum; Bishops Palace; Reginalds Tower; Town Wall; Christchurch; Waterford Crystal Coast, East Cóbh, including Heritage centre; Ardmore early medieval cathedral ruin and tower; Lismore St Carthage’s Cathedral and castle gardens 4 c o u n t y c o r k a nd en v i r o n s INTRODU CTION County Cork (Irish: Contae Chorcaí) in the province of Munster, is the largest and southernmost county of Ireland, and borders four counties: Kerry to the west, Limerick to the north, Tipperary to the north-east and Waterford to the east (Illus. 1). The county is named after the city of Cork (Irish: Corcaigh), the second city of the Republic of Ireland. A series of alternating ridges and valleys characterize southern Ireland, which are oriented east-west, and curve towards the south in west Cork and Kerry. Higher ground is generally made up of Devonian sandstones, and the valleys consist of Carboniferous limestones and shales. Sandstone summits, with many above 500 m, can be found in the Derrynasaggart mountains and the ridge of Shehy, which form the modern boundary between counties Cork and Kerry. Fertile land is located in the limestone or shale valleys of the rivers Bandon, Lee and Blackwater in the north and east of the county, with more rugged pastureland areas in the west (Murphy 1993, 5; Haughton 2005, 43–4; Gleeson 2015, 4–5). The River Lee has its source in the Shehy Mountains on the Cork-Kerry border, flows eastwards towards the natural deep harbour of Cork City (Devoy 2005, 7; Gleeson 2015, 4–5), and enters the sea at this illus. 1. Location of County Cork in Ireland, with the adjacent counties of Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford. county cork and e nv ir ons 5 point. The River Blackwater, or the Munster Blackwater as it is sometimes known, flows a distance of 120 km through the counties of Kerry, Cork and Waterford. The Blackwater and the Lee rivers act as the natural drainage for most of Cork County. The River Bandon also rises in the Shehy Mountains which border counties Cork and Kerry. The Bandon flows through the towns of Dunmanway and Bandon before reaching the harbour in Kinsale. All three rivers flow west to east, before flowing south to the sea (North Atlantic). Clearly, County Cork has been shaped, not just by its geology, but also by the imprint of man, providing the region’s rich history and archaeology. Such a necessarily short introduction to this Summer Meeting Report cannot possibly give full justice to the heritage of Cork and its environs, but can instead point to subjects and areas of significance visited by the Summer Meeting in 2017, and which link to the contributed papers placed chronologically in this volume. Commencing, therefore, with prehistory, there are four main types of megalithic tomb that have been identified in Ireland: court-tombs, portal-tombs, passage-tombs and wedge tombs. One example of a portal tomb – which has two large upright stones, usually very well matched, in front of the chamber that seem to form a doorway – is known near Rosscarbery in County Cork (O’Kelly 2005b, 81). Wedge tombs are far more common in the county, and slightly later in date (300–1500 B.C.); they are most numerous in the west and south-west of Ireland. Most are small and have been constructed simply; they tend to face in a south-westerly direction, an orientation also noted with stone circles and stone rows in the area (Ó Nualláin and Walsh 1992a, 13; Walsh 1997, 1). The design of wedge tombs is relatively consistent and comprises a long, comparatively narrow burial gallery which is generally broader and higher at the entrance and tapers towards the rear. The roof is formed of slabs laid directly on side walls of upright stones. Often there is an outer wall, roughly parallel with and set close to the sidewall, although the outer wall was not intended to support roofing slabs (Walsh 1997, 1). An example of a wedge tomb in County Cork is Labbacallee in West Cork (Grid Reference: R 772 025) (Illus. 2, 3 and 4). Labbacallee is Irish: Leaba Chaillí, meaning ‘Hag’s Head’. It is in fact the largest Irish wedge tomb, dating to c. 2300 B.C. Situated 2 km south-east of Glanworth (Grid Reference: R 758 040, and see the contribution in this volume for its thirteenth-century castle site), and 450 m south of the River Funshion, a tributary of River Blackwater, Labbacallee was excavated in 1934 by Harold G. Leask and Liam Price (1935–37, 77–101) (Leask et al. 2014). The tomb has a long, sub-rectangular gallery, aligned west-north-west to east-south-east, where its west chamber measures 6.2 m long; 1.7 m wide, and 1.8 m high at the west end, tapering down to 1.2 m at the east end. The small east end chamber measures 0.9 m long and 1.2 m wide. There are three roof stones covering the whole tomb. Unburned bones were found in both the main and end chambers. In the main chamber, a fragment of human skull and a spindle whorl were located. In the smaller eastern chamber, an upright female skull was located, along with fragments of an adult male and a child skeleton. A headless female skeleton lay away from its detached head, at the bottom of the chamber (O’Brien 1993b, 65–6). Unsurprisingly, local folklore interprets the site in a number of ways, but Labbacallee’s true significance remains a mystery. 6 c o u n t y c o r k a nd en v i r o n s illus. 2. Labbacallee wedge tomb, West Cork: Exterior viewed from the south (Photo: R. Swallow). illus. 3. Labbacallee wedge tomb, West Cork: Exterior viewed from the east (Photo: R. Swallow). county cork and e nv ir ons 7 illus. 4. Labbacallee wedge tomb, West Cork: Interior of main chamber viewed from west to east (Photo: R. Swallow). Purely on the basis of morphology, hillforts in Ireland have been divided into three main types. The first are those characterised by a single line of defence, which can cover an area of from under two hectares to about nine hectares. Carn Tigherna, near Fermoy, County Cork, is a good example. Hillforts with two or three ramparts widely spaced from one another form the second Irish category, where sites as large as twenty hectares are known in the area. Professor William O’Brien of University College Cork discusses recent archaeological investigation at Clashanimud Bronze Age Hillfort in Mid County Cork (Class 2, Grid Reference: W 52251 61356) in this volume. Class 2 hillforts have a slight emphasis in their distribution to the south-west and west of Ireland, and Cashel Fort, at Upton in County Cork, is also a good example. The third type of hillfort is the promontory fort (Raftery 2005, 159). In Ireland, stone circles are concentrated in mid-Ulster and in South Kerry/West Cork, as are the stone rows (see below). Exact dating is lacking, but stone circles are likely to be Bronze Age in date. In West County Cork, Drombeg (Grid Reference: W 2468 1185), discussed by Sheila Wild in this volume, is a multiple stone circle on a natural rock terrace (Ó Nualláin and Walsh 1992b, 20, 22). Irish circles are generally of non-contiguous stones and vary greatly in diameter and in the number of stones used. There are several significant examples in the west of County Cork and in Kerry, these 8 c o u n t y c o r k a nd en v i r o n s having a special feature not so far recorded in the rest of Ireland: Two adjacent orthostats are taller than the others, and diametrically opposite to them in the circumference is the recumbent stone – where its long axis is horizontal rather than vertical. Two excavated examples of stone circles in the county demonstrate that the diameter, drawn centrally between the two tall stones and across the centre of the recumbent, when projected to the local horizon seem to either mark the point of sunset at the winter solstice (Drombeg, near Glandore, County Cork), or to mark the sunset at the time of the equinoxes (Bohonagh, near Rosscarbery, County Cork) (O’Kelly 2005b, 111). There are three excavated stone circles in County Cork, where a single, centrally-placed cremation burial was found at Drombeg and Bohonagh, but eccentrically placed at Reenascreena (ibid. 112). Stone rows are defined as three or more standing stones set closely together in a relatively straight line. The majority of examples in Ireland occur in the West Cork/ South Kerry area, and most of these have three stones set closely together on a general north-east/south-west axis. In many cases the stones are roughly graded in height with the tallest stone at the south-western end. They share a number of features with stone circles and appear to also date to the Bronze Age. Their exact function remains unknown, but they probably had a ritual, ceremonial or commemorative role, somewhat similar to the stone circles (Ó Nualláin and Walsh 1992c, 34). William O’Brien discusses Castlenalact Bronze Age stone row (Grid Reference: W 48636 60858) in West County Cork in this volume. There is no physical evidence for the settlement of the area of Cork city during the prehistoric period. Within the immediate area of the city, however, a small number of Bronze Age artefacts have been discovered, including a first-century A.D. votive object: three decorated bronze objects known as the Cork Horns, which formed part of a headpiece (Bradley and Halpin 1993, 15–16; Raftery 2005b, 163; Illus. 5). There are about 380 Ogham stones in Ireland, where there is a definite southern location preference. There are some 260 Ogham stones in the counties of Kerry, Cork and Waterford, and examples in County Cork can be found at Greenhill, Kilcullen South and Templebryan. Ogham is a script and an alphabet of twenty letters, which uses strokes cut on, across and either side of a line. Those found in Ireland were designed specifically for the Irish language, and the script was originally used to commemorate named persons. The purpose of Ogham stones is however unclear; they could have been used as memorials or grave markers, or they may have been territorial markers. The inscriptions are generally believed to date to the fifth to seventh centuries A.D. They are most numerous in the southwestern counties of Cork and Kerry, and are found in souterrains, reused for lintels (Power 1992, 124). The Ogham stones displayed in University College Cork (UCC) are all from County Cork, with the exception of one (from County Waterford). They form the largest collection of such inscriptions on open display in Ireland (Illus. 6). Ringforts are the most widespread and characteristic archaeological field monument in the Irish countryside, and may well have been in use from the Iron Age through to the Modern periods. A ringfort is a circular or roughly circular area enclosed by an earthen bank formed of material thrown up from a concentric fosse (ditch) on its outside. The county cork and e nv ir ons illus. 5. The Iron Age Cork Horns: Cork Public Museum (Photo: R. Swallow). illus. 6. Ogham stones displayed in University College Cork (UCC) (Photo: R. Swallow). 9 10 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns diameter of the enclosure is between 25 m and 50 m. A univallate (single bank and ditch) is the most usual form; bivallate and trivallate are far less common. Archaeological excavation has shown that the majority of ringforts were enclosed farmsteads built in the early Christian times, where defence was for local warfare and cattle raiding. The ringfort was also home to a wide variety of craft industries: e.g. spinning, weaving, metal- and glassmaking. In West Cork, the majority of the ringforts were built on the shoulders of ridges or at breaks in slopes (Power 1992, 131). Garranes (Lisnacaheragh Fort) in Mid County Cork (Grid Reference: W 4733 6400) is particularly impressive with an internal diameter of 67 m (Edwards 2005, 240), and William O’Brien outlines recent archaeological investigation at this site in this volume. Internal and external timber revetments to consolidate the dump construction and prevent the bank from slipping into the ditch would probably have been relatively common, as were stone revetments, for example, at Garryduff I, County Cork (ibid. at 244). Ringforts are often found in groups of two or three, as at Lisleagh, County Cork (ibid. 254). Evidence for the manufacture of lignite, jet and shale bracelets, rings, beads and gaming pieces has been found at Oldcourt ringfort, County Cork (ibid. 279). Cashels have the same circular or roughly circular plan as ringforts, but the houses were built of stone or with stone footings. The walls could be as much as 6 m thick and up to 3 m high. They often had much larger stones in the lower courses (Power 1992, 221). Said to be the ruins of Ireland’s oldest Christian settlement, Ardmore Cathedral (Grid Reference: V 6569 5291) on the east coast of County Cork, is set upon a hill overlooking the town. The 30 m-high round tower is one of the best examples in Ireland, and the Romanesque arcading on the west gable of the roofless cathedral is decorated with twelfth-century stone carvings of biblical scenes, which is very unusual in Ireland. Within the cathedral, formerly recognised as such in 1170, are two Ogham stones, one with the longest such inscription in the country, and a number of medieval grave slabs. The oldest building on the site is the probable eighth-century Oratory of St Declan, a prePatrician Saint in the fifth century, which was restored in 1716; the saint is said to be buried beneath a hollow in its southeast corner (Illus. 7–10). Commencing its life as the secular seat of the Éoganachta kingship in Munster, the Rock of Cashel (Irish, meaning ‘fortress’: Downham 2017, 21), in County Tipperary (Grid Reference: D 2600 3808), about 80 km north-east of Cork, likely dates to A.D. 550–500. Cashel’s immediate landscape, however, suggests a prehistoric focus (Gleeson 2013, 1). Cashel became not only a fortress, but also a royal residence, a religious centre, and a meeting place (Barrow 1976, 133). Indeed, Cashel is unique in Ireland, being the only royal site known to have had a church, although there is no evidence for ecclesiastical presence prior to the ninth century (Hodkinson 1994; Gleeson 2013, 2). In 1101, the great capital and royal ceremonial centre of the Rock of Cashel was granted to the church by the King of Munster and Ireland, Muircheartach Ua Briain, Cashel becoming the most powerful bishopric in southern Ireland (Barrow 1976, 133; Gleeson 2013, 3; Downham 2017, 3). The earliest surviving structure on the site is the Round Tower, possibly dating to the tenth century (Barrow 1976, 134–36), and the first recorded church is Cormac’s Chapel (1134 A.D: see O’Keeffe 1994, 118 for a c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 11 illus. 7. Round tower and ruins of St Declan’s Church, Ardmore (Photo: R. Swallow). illus. 8. The arcading of the likely twelfth-century west wall of Ardmore Cathedral consists of a row of thirteen panels of which nine still contain Romanesque figure sculptures, shown here. Below these panels are two lunettes also containing figure sculptures. Still discernible is Archangel Michael weighing the souls, and in the lower panels are Adam and Eve, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Judgment of Solomon (Photo: R. Swallow). 12 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 9. One of the two Ogham stones in Ardmore Cathedral (Photo: R. Swallow). illus. 10. The Oratory of St Declan and the Round Tower, Ardmore Cathedral (Photo: R. Swallow). discussion of its architecture). At the west end of the nave is a sarcophagus, which had originally been inside the cathedral, and once contained a small gilt copper crozier head, possibly dating to the late thirteenth-century (Barrow 1976, 135). Possibly contemporary with Cormac’s Chapel is St Patrick’s Cross (Gleeson 2013, 4). Thirtyfive years later, in 1169, a cathedral was founded in an unknown place on the Rock by ruler, Domnall Mór Ua Briain. The thirteenth-century cathedral was built between Cormac’s chapel and the Round Tower, and building continued for some two hundred years; the choir is dated stylistically to the second quarter of the thirteenthcentury (Barrow 1976, 136). As regards the landscape of Cashel, recent research by Gleeson (2012) demonstrates that the Dubhcloy is a north-east to south-west-orientated linear earthwork aimed directly on the north-east corner of the Rock of Cashel. Cashel’s prehistoric landscape is slowly becoming apparent, and current evidence suggests a hiatus of activity between the first and fifth centuries A.D., making it likely that the Dubhcloy is also an early medieval monument (Dillon 1952; Cahill 1982; Hodkinson 1994; Gleeson 2012, 15). See Illustrations 11–14. Also in County Tipperary, Dr Tomás Ó Carragáin outlines recent archaeological survey work at the early medieval (seventh-century) monastery of Toureen Peakaun in this volume (Grid Reference: S 2004, 1285). Indeed, the initial settlement at Cork city was a sixth- or seventh-century monastery dedicated to St Finnbarr at the south bank of the River Lee. Here, Vikings established a longphort or small settlement by the c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 13 illus. 11. Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary (Photo: R. Swallow). illus. 12. Rock of Cashel: Thirteenth-century Cathedral and Round Tower (Photo: R. Swallow). 14 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 13. Rock of Cashel: Sarcophagus in Cormac’s Chapel (Photo: R. Swallow). illus. 14. Rock of Cashel: St Patrick’s Cross (Photo: R. Swallow). c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 15 ninth century (Hurley 2005, 56), possibly evidenced in the concentric topography of the streets surrounding the current church of St Finbar’s (that is, Bishop Street to the north of the cathedral, and Dean Street to the south of it), forming a D-shaped shape in the townscape (Bradley and Halpin 1993, 17–18; Jefferies, O’Brien, and Stack 2004, 34–36; Gleeson 2015, 48). Most of modern county Cork was once part of the Kingdom of Deas Mumhan (South Munster), anglicised as ‘Desmond’, and ruled by the MacCarthy Mór dynasty (MacCarthy 1921, 266). After the late twelfth-century arrival of the Anglo-Normans, the McCarthy clan were pushed westwards into what is now West Cork and County Kerry. At this time, Cork’s small harbour became the main Anglo-Norman port on the south-west coast of Ireland, and the earlier Hiberno-Norse trading community and nearby monastic nucleus transitioned into a socially- and architecturally-diverse urban centre, focussed on the southern marsh of Cork, and surrounded by a town wall (O’Flanagan 2005, 100; Gleeson 2015, 4–6). The town was granted its first charter by the Lord John (later King John) some time between 1185 and 1189 (O’Brien 1993a, 49). Professor Emeritus Howard Clarke provides a chronological overview of Cork city to c. 1800, as the first contribution in this volume. In West Cork, the Franciscans established a friary in Timoleague (Grid Reference: W 49066 42936); it is now one of the most impressive National Monuments and ruins in Cork (Power 1992, 350). Situated on the west bank of the Argideen River, where it discharges into Courtmacsherry estuary, the exact date of foundation is unclear. It may have been built before 1316 by either Donal Glas MacCarthy or William de Barry (Power 1992, 351). Remains consist of a church with ranges of domestic buildings around the cloister to the north, where changes appear to have been made over several centuries (Power 1992, 351). Timoleague friary was plundered by English forces in 1612, and it then began to be used for burials by local people; the ground level is therefore much higher than the original (Power 1992, 349). See Illustrations 15 and 16. Annalistic references suggest that a number of Anglo-Norman castles were built along the coast of Cork County, and some of these may have been ringworks (Power 1992, 316). John’s charter of 1189 (see above) called for the ‘enclosure of land of the town of Cork, except a place in the same town, which he keeps to make a fortress’ (Mac Niocaill 1964, 158; O’Brien 1985, 49; Thomas 1992, 64; Gleeson 2015, 91). The Annals of Inisfallen refer to a castle built in 1206 on the South Island of the marsh in Cork called King’s Castle, and cartographic evidence indicates that there was a Queen’s Castle just to its north, the two structures possibly operating together; all shipping traffic into the Anglo-Norman town would have been directed into the central channel of the marsh at this time, and would have been monitored – and toll collected – at the marine gate located between the King’s and Queen’s castles (Power 1996-2002; n. p.; Gleeson 2015, 115, 117, 127). Dr Tomás Ó Carragáin of University College Cork considers the thirteenth-century castle of Glanworth in County Cork in a contribution to this volume. By the mid- to late thirteenth century, the manorial centres of the Cork hinterland and wider Cork area were thriving (O’Conor 2004, 236–38; O’Brien 2004, 51–52; Gleeson 2015, 164). In 1242, the citizens of Cork town petitioned the crown to grant them a charter that would bestow them with the rights to relative autonomy that had 16 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 15. Timoleague Friary, West Cork: On-site interpretation panel showing plan of monument (Photo: R. Swallow). been given to Dublin in 1215 and Waterford in 1232 (Otwey–Ruthven 1968, 124); the last royal governor was Peter de Rivall, appointed in 1232 and dismissed in 1234. During the high medieval era, there was sustained economic growth and general wealth in Cork. Waterford’s Medieval Museum is discussed by Roland Crosskey and Sue Shaw in this volume. However, in 1491, following the end of the English Wars of the Roses (culminating in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485), Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the English throne, landed in the city and tried to recruit support for a plot to overthrow Henry VII of England. The Cork people fought with Perkin because he was French and not English, and the mayor of Cork and several important citizens travelled with Warbeck to England. However, when the rebellion collapsed, the Cork citizens were all captured and executed – this incident bringing about Cork’s nickname of the ‘rebel city’. During the first half of the sixteenth century, Cork and Waterford continued to obtain their charters through the English rather than the Irish chancery; Cork was in close trading contact with Bristol and London. During the second half of the century, the Fitzgerald Desmond dynasty was destroyed in the Desmond Rebellions of 1569–1573 and 1579–83, when much of county Cork was devastated. Subsequently, most of Cork was colonised by English settlers in the Plantation of Munster. c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 17 illus. 16. Timoleague Friary: Nave and Tower (Photo: R. Swallow). The earliest formal archaeological excavations in Cork city were undertaken at the sites of the urban tower house of Skiddy’s Castle (1973) and Christ Church College (1974), the results of both not published until 1997 (Cleary et al 1997). Tower houses were built during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as lordly residences by both Gaelic families and descendants of the Anglo-Normans. The majority have tall rectangular towers of three to five storeys in height, where each storey was occupied by one main room; one, and sometimes two, of these rooms were covered by a wicker-centred vault. The outer enclosure, or bawn, often with corner towers on the angles, is occasionally preserved and usually built abutting the tower house rather than completely enclosing it. The dominant family group in West Cork was MacCarthy Riabhach, whose chief residence was Kilbrittain (Power 1992, 321); in Mid Cork it was the MacCarthys, with their chief residence at Blarney (Power 1997, 356). Denise Sheehan of University College Cork provides a section on Kilcrea medieval tower house/castle in this volume. In 1601, the Battle of Kinsale resulted in English domination of Ireland for centuries. Kinsale later attracted Spanish troops, arriving to help Irish rebels in the Nine Years’ War (1594–1603) (Thuillier 2001, 21). County Cork was officially created by a division of the older County Desmond in 1606. The English built a line of forts along the Cork coast due to the threat of invasions from France and Spain. These star-shaped 18 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns fortifications appeared in Europe during the sixteenth century, and were introduced by the English government into Ireland by the seventeenth century, falling out of use by the early nineteenth century. The forts were designed to withstand attack from artillery and to mount guns for efficient defence. They had angled bastions at the corners to provide flanking fire; the walls were masked by sloping embankments or glacis to absorb artillery fire, which could be swept by gunfire from the ramparts. The forts built in West Cork, including James and Charles Forts in Kinsale, do not form a strategic defence, however. The star-shaped Charles Fort is 3 km east of Kinsale in Summercove. It was built in the 1670s by the English to protect Kinsale harbour against foreign naval forces, but because of its vulnerability to land attack, was taken during the siege of 1690 by William of Orange’s army. It remained in service until 1922, when the British forces left the town and handed it over to the Irish Government. Charles Fort remains one of the finest remaining examples of a star-shaped bastion fort in Europe. James Fort, built between 1602–04 over an older structure called ‘Chastell Park Chastell’ (Thuillier 2001, 31–38), is a pentagonal fort located on Castlepark peninsula in Kinsale harbour west of the later Charles Fort. Both guarded the narrow harbour entrance of Kinsale. James Fort was completed in 1607 and was captured in 1690 by Williamite forces. Other examples are Elizabeth Fort in Cork, and Castletownsend, a star-shaped fortification, built on the top of a steep incline on the south shore of Castle Haven Bay, known as ‘Bryan’s Fort’. This star-shaped fortification was built as a fortified dwelling by Colonel Richard Townsend, c. 1650, and was also subject to a number of attacks in 1690 (Power 1992, 358). See Illustrations 17–19. In the eighteenth century, Ballincollig gunpower mills (Grid Reference: W 574 710) were the largest in Ireland and amongst the most extensive in the former United Kingdom (discussed by Dr Colin Rynne in this volume), and by the nineteenth century, the city of Cork was an important departure point for people fleeing from the Famine. The county was later to become the subject of guerrilla activity during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921). Cóbh (pronounced ‘cove’) lies on Great Island, one of the three islands in Cork harbour which are now linked by causeways. The Victorian seafront has rows of steeply terraced houses overlooked by St Colman’s, an imposing Gothic Revival cathedral. Following a visit by Queen Victoria in 1849, Cóbh was renamed Queenstown but reverted to its original name in 1921. The town commands one of the world’s largest natural harbours, which is why it was prominent naval base in the eighteenth century. It was also a major port for merchant shipping and the main port form which Irish emigrants left for America. Cóbh was also a port of call for luxury passenger liners. In 1838, the Sirius made the first transatlantic crossing under steam power from here. Cóbh was also the last stop for the Titanic, before its doomed Atlantic crossing in 1912. Three years later, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine just of Kinsale, south-west of Cóbh (Lordan 2014, 87–95). The nineteenth century was also an important period for education in the county: University College Cork (UCC) was established in 1845 as one of three Queen’s Colleges at Cork, Galway and Belfast. UCC’s patron saint is St Finnbarr of Cork, and c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s illus. 17. Elizabeth Fort, City of Cork (Photo: R. Swallow). illus. 18. Charles Fort, Kinsale, West County Cork (Photo: R. Swallow). 19 20 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 19. James Fort, Kinsale, West County Cork (Photo: R. Swallow). illus. 20. The Quad, University College Cork (Photo: R. Swallow). c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 21 it is believed that his monastery and associated school of learning were located close by to the site of the college, at Gill Abbey Rock; the monastery’s mill was likely to have been on the bank of the River Lee, which runs through the lower grounds of the college. Indeed, UCC’s motto is ‘Where Finnbarr Taught Let Munster Learn’. Situated at the heart of the campus is ‘The Quad’, a group of limestone buildings constructed 1847–49 (Illus. 20). The cloistered walkway within is known as the Stone Corridor, and is the home to the unique collection of inscribed Ogham stones (Murphy 1995, and see above). It is to Cork City that we now turn, as the first of ten contributions of papers to this volume. Dr Rachel Swallow University of Chester CORK CITY Nowadays the city of Cork’s most iconic building is the steeple of St Anne’s Shandon, situated on steeply rising ground on the northern side of the River Lee (see cover illustration to this volume for its image, and Illus. 21 at ‘I’, for its location). Visible from the railway line just before the train plunges into the tunnel leading directly to Kent Station, this monument invites curiosity only to deceive. It occupies the site of a much earlier church dedicated to St Mary, which had been severely damaged in the Williamite siege of 1690 (Power 1994, 278). Financed by public subscription, St Anne’s was begun in 1722 as a chapel of ease, designed as a three-tier structure of ashlar limestone with diminishing stages, before two further stages were added to accommodate new bells manufactured in Gloucester (ibid., 279). A copper dome and a gilded weathervane in the form of a salmon, symbolizing the river, provided the crowning glory (Crowley et al. 2005, 89, 101, 143, 145, 348). Later again, in 1847 amid the stresses of the Great Famine (Crowley et al. 2005, 240–1), a clock made in the city with four faces 3 m in diameter was installed. Owing to defects in the mechanism, however, it became famous for its capacity to deceive: only on the hour does it show the correct time, each of the four faces usually showing different times and all of them incorrect. As a result, Corkonian wit has deemed it the Four-faced Liar. This is apt for a different reason. Were one to ascend the steeple and contemplate the urban landscape in every direction, the only certainty is that one would guess wrongly. The city of Cork – from Irish corcach, meaning ‘marshy place’ – has a pronounced capacity to deceive both inhabitant and visitor about its origins and development; it tends to rebel against the obvious. One example has already been mentioned – the name of the railway station has little or nothing to do with the English county. Instead it commemorates Thomas Kent (Ceannt), a member of the Cork Volunteer Brigade from 1914, who became involved in a gun battle with police and soldiers and was executed on 9 May 1916, the day after the better known Éamonn Ceannt, a signatory of the proclamation of Irish independence, met a similar fate in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin. Like Yorkshire in England, County Cork is by far the largest county in Ireland (Crowley et al. 2005, 4). Much of its geotectonic structure is essentially east-west and Hercynian, extending into the southern part of neighbouring County Kerry 22 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 21. The City of Cork Map by George Story, c. 1690. The medieval walls of Cork fell into disrepair after the siege of Cork in September of the same year. Source: Cork Past and Present (Cork City Council): http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/mapsimages/corkcityinoldmaps/ c1690thecityofcorkmap/1690%20circa_high_res.pdf (Accessed 30 April 2018). (Haughton 1979, 13). The biggest rivers, in descending order of size, the Blackwater, the Lee and the Bandon, all flow from west to east before turning sharply southwards in order to enter the sea via major estuaries. In the far west of the Wild Atlantic Way there is a wonderfully scenic landscape featuring the Kenmare River (also shared with County Kerry via the Healy Pass), Bantry Bay and Dunmanus Bay, together with a c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 23 multitude of coves beloved of medieval pirates and latter-day drug smugglers. Between these two zones the most dramatic link is the Pass of Keimaneigh through a gap in the Shehy Mountains. Much of the solid geology is Old Red Sandstone, but a band of Carboniferous Limestone provides the bedrock of the lower Lee valley and farther eastwards (Haughton 1979, 15; Crowley et al. 2005, 9). This has had a profound effect on the traditional built fabric of Cork city, where north-side buildings tend to be of purple-red sandstone and south-side ones of white-grey limestone. Some buildings, including sections of the medieval town walls, use or once used both (Crowley et al. 2005, 8). An inheritance from the last Ice Age is The Glen in Blackpool, a melt-water escape channel crossed by the railway immediately before the tunnel entrance. Prior to the clearances of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this was a landscape that was well wooded, as is evidenced by an extraordinary parallel with one of northern England’s most notable cities. According to the recently published atlas of York, its name ‘may derive from a British [Celtic] word meaning “the place of the yew trees”’ (Addyman 2015, 7). This has precisely the same derivation as that of one of Cork’s main trading rivals, Youghal (pronounced ‘yawl’) on the Blackwater estuary, whose Irish form is Eochaill (Kelly and O’Keeffe 2015, 10). As will become apparent below, Cork and its region could from time to time be closely related to the neighbouring island, if not always happily. As a popular local folk song implies, life in Cork has always been dominated by the River Lee (Illus. 22). It is the citizens’ friend and its enemy at one and the same time. The Lee is only 65 km in length, but has a large primary catchment area of 1254 km2 and a powerful mean discharge rate on account of its mountainous backdrop (Haughton 1979, 22–3). The river discharges into the sea via an extensive estuarine zone known as Cork Harbour (Crowley et al. 2005, 391). In effect there is both an inner and an outer harbour, linked to one another by the narrow gap in the sandstone at aptly named Passage West. As the editors of the Atlas of Cork City remark, ‘if one were to choose a site on which to build a city, then Cork, in the midst of a marsh and surrounded by steep hills, would not be one’s ideal location’ (Crowley et al. 2005, x). Well to the west of the modern city centre near Thomas Davis Bridge, the Lee divides into a north channel and a south channel, both of which enclose the main commercial area before reuniting opposite Kent Station. The place-name Corcaigh, ‘marsh’ is entirely appropriate for much of the city centre lies within normal spring tide ranges. One of the principal thoroughfares, Oliver Plunkett Street (formerly George’s Street) is only 4 m above sea level. The core of the medieval and early modern town would occupy two of more than a dozen mud flats between the two river channels and there has been a long history of periodic and sometimes severe flooding. To cite only the most ironic instance, in 1789 a man named Noah lost his life in a flood. The surrounding hills, on the other hand, presented other types of problem, not least to railway engineers in the nineteenth century. Within 6 km south-west of the city centre, the spectacular Chetwynd Viaduct still stands, albeit distinctly forlorn, as a testament to the technical challenges involved in linking low-lying Cork by rail to places along the south coast (Crowley et al. 2005, 197). This paper has very limited objectives. It is necessarily highly selective and intentionally impressionistic, though an honest attempt has been made to keep the lies to a 24 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 22. River Lee, Cork. The foundations of St Laurence’s Church, the now levelled site of which is to the right of this image, were excavated in 2017. The 1600s Elizabeth Fort is just visible to the immediate left of the 1879 St Finbar’s Cathedral, both in the background of the image. (Photo: R. Swallow). minimum. Emphasis will be placed on morphological and topographical aspects down to c. 1800, which are the most likely to be elucidated by archaeology in the future. The archaeological and written records that are available now tell a story of enormous complexity and one that is still only partially understood. Today there is just one upstanding medieval structure of any size and this is the four-storey tower of the Augustinian house in the southern suburbs known as the Red Abbey, so named from the colour of its sandstone (Power 1994, 276; Crowley et al. 2005, 105). Most of the visible streetscape, from the perspective of St Anne’s Church or from anywhere else and including many of the streets themselves, dates from the eighteenth century and later. The pre-industrial streetscape has to be reconstructed with patient attention to diverse and slender clues. Amid so much historical complexity, referencing here has been kept to a minimum in order to avoid an excessive overload. This paper relies heavily on two outstanding publications, the second also for illustrative purposes for readers fortunate enough to have access to it (Power 1994; Crowley et al. 2005). It depends, too, on a forthcoming publication in the Royal Irish Academy’s long-term project known as the Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA) (Clarke and Ní Laoi Forthcoming). In that sense, this paper is anticipatory as well as confirmatory. c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 25 illus. 23. St Finbar’s Cathedral, Cork City, illus. 24. St Finbar’s Cathedral: nave. (Photo: situated at ‘D’ on the c. 1690 map of Cork (Illus. R. Swallow). 21). (Photo: R. Swallow). In the existing literature it is customary to start a history of Cork with an account of the monastic site attributed to St Finnbarr (Fionnbharr, meaning ‘fair-haired’) (Illus. 23 – 24). That the site commenced the city’s history may or may not be correct. The district name Shandon on the northern side is derived from Irish an sean dún, ‘the old fortress’. There certainly was a documented castle on this elevated site in the Middle Ages, but this may have been preceded by a Gaelic fortification about which nothing is known on account of its location in a heavily and long-term urbanized environment. In addition the monastery coexisted with at least some of the approximately six hundred ringforts (raths and cashels) recorded in the official inventory for the east and south of the later county and dating from the second half of the first millennium A.D. (Power 1994, 77–151; Crowley et al. 2005, 52). There may have been other farmsteads of this sort that were destroyed in the course of centuries of urbanization. Scholars disagree, too, about whether or not St Finnbarr ever existed at all (Jefferies, O’Brien, and Stack 2004, 9–14). The traditional foundation date for the monastery at Cork is A.D. 606, but the first authentic reference may be to Abbot Suibne mac Máele hUmai who died in A.D. 682. Monks of Cork fought two recorded battles in the early ninth century, suggesting the presence of a substantial community. The site originally chosen was on the south side of the Lee near the lowest fording point of the south channel, where present-day Bishop Street and Dean Street may be a distant and imperfect reflection of an inner enclosure comparable with those at Kells in County Meath and at Kildare (Andrews 1986, 2; Simms and Simms 1990, 3). The duality of settlement nuclei at Cork, one secular and the other ecclesiastical, is reminiscent of that at Dublin (Clarke 2002, 1–2). 26 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns If that is the case, another parallel arises with the Vikings, who at Cork as at Dublin established a third settlement nucleus that became the core of the later town (Clarke 2002, 2–4). The first Vikings were ship-based, of course, and needed a defensible site with access to the open sea. In 2005 an artist’s impression labelled ‘Hiberno-Viking’ Cork was published and this remains a useful working hypothesis (Crowley et al. 2005, 56). The first written indication of Scandinavian settlement at Cork comes in A.D. 846 and there are a number of other examples of Vikings occupying islands in the rivers of western Europe in the mid-ninth century. Defensive arrangements were ready-made and effective, whilst access to the sea was guaranteed. The number of references to Viking Cork is disappointingly small, whereas to all appearances the monastery on the south bank of the Lee continued to flourish. We have to assume that a symbiotic relationship developed between native and foreigner. Archaeologically Viking Cork of the ninth and tenth centuries has been tantalizingly elusive and so it remains in terms of graves, for example. In the latter part of the twentieth century there was a tentative assumption that the Barrack Street area on the south bank of the Lee was the main focus of Viking Cork (Power 1994, 275), but recently what became the south island of the medieval town has found favour as a result of new discoveries, most promisingly on the site of the Beamish and Crawford brewery on the western side of South Main Street (Crowley et al. 2005, 187) (Illus. 25). Indeed, the eight-month-long excavation led by Dr Maurice Hurley, and which ended in June 2017, importantly indicates that Viking Cork’s cultural influence and development were on a par with Dublin’s and Waterford’s. Amongst finds were a perfectly preserved 30 cm long weaver’s wooden (yew) sword, with carved human faces typical of the Ringerike style of Viking art; a late-eleventh-century date is speculated. It is likely that the sword was used by women to compress threads into place on a loom, while the pointed end was used to pick up the threads for pattern-making. One of the other artefacts found was a wooden thread-winder carved with two horses’ heads, also associated with fabric weaving. Other discoveries at the Beamish and Crawford brewery site include intact ground plans of nineteen Viking houses, remnants of central hearths and bedding material (The Irish Times (online), dated 26 September 2017 and 10 January 2018). A full report of the excavations at the site is eagerly awaited. Economically, therefore, Cork’s trading function may have prospered. Of this we get a valuable clue from the fact that in 1013, during the build-up to the climactic battle of Clontarf, King Sitriuc Silkenbeard of Dublin dispatched a naval expedition to Cork, which was burnt. The rebellion against his overlord Brian Bórama may have been motivated by economic rivalry before it became political. The Dubliners were then defeated by the local Irish king, Cathal mac Donnchada, and a son and a nephew of King Sitriuc were killed in the fighting (Clarke 2015, 260). Progressive Hibernicization had the effect of strengthening the position of Cork and a century later, in 1118, the emergence of the MacCarthy kingdom of Desmond (south Munster) gave it a more central role. The kings themselves resided in some sort of castle at Shandon and their jurisdictional powers are indicated by the presence of a gallows. Ecclesiastical authority was now focused on St St Finbar’s, where a flourishing monastic life is evidenced by the construction of a round tower that was to survive down to 1738 (Power 1994, 275). Like many other major c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 27 illus. 25. Site of the Beamish and Crawford Brewery Ltd, west of South Main Street, City of Cork (which operated from 1792 to 2009). View from Elizabeth Fort to the south-west of the site (R. Swallow, July 2017). monasteries in 1111 it became the seat of a bishop and the new territorial diocese would have included all of the churches between the Atlantic to the west and the Blackwater to the east. At some point the main church was rebuilt in Romanesque fashion, as is evidenced by the survival of six voussoirs suggesting links with Poitou in west-central France (Power 1994, 276). In the 1130s an abbey was built on the site of a supposed cave to the west of the cathedral complex, as part of the growing Augustinian presence in Ireland combining monastic vows with pastoral ministry. It took its name, Gill Abbey, from an early bishop, Gilla Áeda Ua Maigín (ibid., 276). Christ Church on the south island functioned as the main parish church (ibid., 277) and the first reference to a bridge over the Lee, probably on the site of later South Gate Bridge, comes in 1163. Excavations conducted near this church have uncovered Ham Green A ware of the mid-twelfth century, suggesting links with Bristol. Hiberno-Norse Cork was clearly a functioning urban centre of some significance. The capture of Cork by Anglo-French (Anglo-Norman) forces under the leadership of Robert fitz Stephen and Miles de Cogan in 1177 brought dramatic changes to Cork, as to every other Hiberno-Norse town in Ireland. At least some of the so-called Ostmen were expelled to the Barrack Street area while the MacCarthys were forced to abandon Shandon and regroup upriver beyond Ballincollig, from where they would harass the townspeople 28 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns during the late Middle Ages. The town itself became crown property and its first royal charter, granted by the Lord John at an uncertain date in the late 1180s, conferred on the inhabitants the liberties of Bristol. Initially only the south island was provided with defences, stone walling being evidenced towards the end of John’s reign as king. The north island, focused on a second parish church dedicated to St Peter (Power 1994, 277), seems to have been enclosed by c. 1300. The upshot was a rectangular space 640 m by 220 m with an area of 14.5 ha. The defensive perimeter comprised sixteen mural towers, two bridge gates (north and south) and a water gate on the east (Crowley et al. 2005, 64). The latter was flanked by a castle on either side and protected the all-important harbour sandwiched between the two islands, as is reflected in the city’s coat of arms (ibid., 6, 109). Present-day North Main Street and South Main Street preserve the principal medieval thoroughfare, along both sides of which was an extraordinary array of public and private laneways laid out at right-angles and now marked by pavement plaques (ibid., 77–8) (Illus. 27). Here post-and-wattle houses continued to be built well into the thirteenth century before being replaced by sill-beam half-timbered structures. As elsewhere, mendicant houses and hospitals adopted suburban sites, both north and south. Archaeologically the best known is the Dominican house of St Mary’s of the Isle, located on its own mud flat to the south-west. The church itself was erected on drier land while the claustral buildings on its northern side were supported on wooden piles driven into the mud (Power 1994, 276; Crowley et al. 2005, 93–7). The English colony in Ireland reached its peak around 1270 and thereafter we hear of signs of stress, decline and contraction. Cork, like many other towns, became a bastion of Englishness in an enlarging Gaelic sea. As early as 1344 the mayor and bailiffs were forbidding migration back to England without royal licence, with the exception of merchants and their assistants who had of necessity to travel abroad. A mural charter of seven years’ duration was granted in 1368. In the mid-1370s both the northern and the southern suburban areas were burnt by ‘Irish enemies and English rebels’ – the standard late medieval formula for the colony’s tormentors. At the same time stone-walled houses became commoner, some well back from the main street frontage on plots that contained as many as three buildings one behind the other. Another sign of improved housing is the chimney tax imposed from 1384 to pay for watchmen at night time. Urban tower houses were being constructed in the fifteenth century, the best known being Skiddy’s Castle built in c. 1445 on the north island (Power 1994, 279; Crowley et al. 2005, 73, 113). Trading continued and even expanded from the mid-fifteenth century as opportunities opened up in the Iberian peninsula. In 1462 the government of King Edward IV recognized the impracticality of requiring the inhabitants to pay an annual fee farm or rent to the crown and accorded them the right to collect customs duty on wool, sheepskins and hides. The royal charter of 1482 is important in that it extended the townspeople’s jurisdiction of much of the harbour area. Not everything was gloom and doom in late medieval Ireland. The archaeological record for Cork in the age of the Tudors is poor, but by way of compensation we have our first maps of the place. The earliest authenticated plan is to be found in a work entitled Pacata Hibernia and is thought to date originally from c. 1585 (Crowley et al. 2005, 112) (Illus. 26). Viewed from the east we see a complete circuit of walls with mural towers, timber bridges outside the two landward gates and the watergate c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 29 illus. 26. Bird’s-eye view of Cork from the east, c. 1585. This map was first published in Pacata Hibernia (London, 1633), but is thought to date from earlier. Pacata Hibernia deals with the Elizabethan wars in Ireland. Source: Cork Past and Present (Cork City Council): http:// www.corkpastandpresent.ie/mapsimages/corkcityinoldmaps/pacatahiberniamap1585-1600/ 1585_1600%20Pacata%20Hibernia_original_high_res.pdf (retrieved 30 April 2018). 30 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns enclosing the minuscule harbour. Many of the houses are three storeys high, hinting at a level of prosperity evidenced in some late sixteenth-century wills. Some shady dealing may have been involved in the latter case, since in 1548 the mayor and corporation were granted permission to trade with English pirates for wine, figs and sugar. More informative still are the so-called Hardiman maps of c. 1601 and 1602 (Illus. 27). Many of the monastic buildings were still standing, having been converted to secular uses. Militarily the most striking addition is Elizabeth Fort, located on steeply rising ground on the south side and intended to deal with the perceived vulnerability of the low-lying town (Power 1994, 279; Crowley et al. 2005, 74, 113, 119, 121, 162, 303) (Illus. 17, located at ‘C’ on Illus. 21). This development is hardly surprising in view of the great Munster rebellions of 1579–83 and 1598–1603. Most tellingly for the future, however, is the depiction of the north-east marsh, which had been enclosed by embankments, provided with a small fort and could be accessed by means of a wooden drawbridge. This is now a vital part of the modern city lying between Paul Street and Lavitt’s Quay. Hereafter key developments in the topographical history of Cork can be followed in the cartographical record. The defeat of the northern earls and their Spanish allies south-west of Cork at Kinsale – a port of some significance dating from the Middle Ages – in the winter of 1601–2 illus. 27. Bird’s-eye view of Cork from the east, 1602. This map is held in the Hardiman Collection in Trinity College, Dublin. Historians and cartographers regard it as a very accurate representation of Cork at the end of the sixteenth century. The map clearly shows the principal medieval thoroughfare of the city, situated between two islands in the marshes. Source: Cork Past and Present (Cork City Council) http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/mapsimages/corkcityinold maps/c1585-1600mapofcorkcity/ (retrieved 30 April 2018). c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 31 inaugurated a tragic century of destruction, dispossession and disruption, combined with further colonization and consolidation, across much of Ireland. The fate of Cork was mixed in practice. Some of the damage to the town’s built fabric was purely accidental, as in the case of a serious fire caused by a lightning strike in 1622 (Crowley et al. 2005, 23) and the destruction of both bridges by floods in the 1630s. The former brought about a ban on thatched roofs and mainly slated ones are indicated in the Civil Survey of 1663–64. At the same time window glass became commoner in ordinary houses. Political upheaval could be damaging, as with the enforced expulsion of the Catholic population in 1644, resulting in the dilapidation of some of the housing. On the other hand, urban growth appears to have resumed in the 1660s, as was clearly the case in Dublin, and George Story’s map of c. 1690 shows the results (Crowley et al. 2005, 125) (lllus. 21). The north-east marsh was now largely built up with a customhouse at the eastern end. Due south of that the townspeople could play bowls on a rectangular green laid out on Dunscombe’s Marsh. The north-side suburbs had expanded considerably and the documentary records show that Cork was benefiting from the growth of Atlantic colonial trade in beef and butter. On the western side of the medieval core, the Dominican priory had been adapted to serve as the mayor’s residence by the end of the century. The four-day siege of 1690 dealt what would prove to be a fatal blow to the medieval defences in the south-eastern sector. Indeed England’s socalled Glorious Revolution of 1688 would, for most of Ireland’s population, turn out to be distinctly inglorious for the next century and a half. One positive aspect of the new socio-political dispensation is that Cork’s Protestant patriciate seized the initiative with Weberian enthusiasm. Medieval churches were rebuilt to suit Protestant taste, some of them with crypts for high-status burial (Crowley et al. 2005, 91). Christ Church was so treated by 1720 (ibid., 87, 165). Protestantism was not a single entity, of course: by early in the eighteenth century the Huguenots had their chapel on the north-east marsh (in present-day French Church Street), the Presbyterians likewise on Dunscombe’s Marsh and the Quakers their meeting house on Hammond’s Marsh towards the west (ibid., 76, 170). Because of its poor condition the medieval cathedral was demolished in 1735 and replaced (ibid., 89). John Carty’s map of 1726 shows how much had been achieved in the first quarter of the century (ibid., 151). To cite just one instance, a street grid had been laid out and partly built up on Dunscombe’s Marsh, with the future Oliver Plunkett Street (here the suitably Hanoverian George Street) and South Mall (unnamed) providing parallel axial thoroughfares somewhat reminiscent of Limerick’s more elaborate though later Newtown Pery (O’Flaherty 2010, map 18). Not shown by Carty is the embankment to the west known as the Mardyke, built in 1719 by a Dutchman Edward Webber and called by him Meer Dijk, ‘sea dyke’. Dutch-style houses were being built along some of the quays, which led contemporaries to liken Cork, with its still numerous waterways, to Dutch towns. Early in the century, too, and amongst other improvements the corporation sponsored the construction of a new exchange with an Italianate design at the interface of the north and south islands (ibid., 134). By mid-century many of these developments had been taken further along the road to completion, as Charles Smith’s map of 1750 shows us (ibid., 152). From around that time wealthy citizens (as we may now regard them) began to move out to more salubrious locations on the surrounding hills and the medieval laneways 32 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns declined into squalid tenements. Of the seventy-five laneways shown on John Rocque’s maps (1759–73) (Illus. 28), only eight survive today in public use together with a further six broadened into modern streets (Crowley et al. 2005, 76, 98–99, 102, 153). The principal north-south axis remained as what Rocque called The Main Street until the infilling of Grand Parade was completed. In the old town a major development was the demolition of St Peter’s Church, serving the north-side parish, in 1782 and its replacement three years later by a smaller edifice (ibid., 86). South Mall remained a quayside (ibid., 154), but most ocean-going ships continued to moor at a series of quays along the north channel of the Lee. This tendency had been consolidated earlier in the century with the construction in 1725 of an elegant Georgian-style customhouse on an inlet off Lavitt’s Quay, replacing the earlier one on that site (ibid., 167, 225). The extension of the quays in an easterly (downstream) direction permitted vessels of up to three hundred tons to access the city directly, facilitating the provisioning trade. Indeed it could be said that Britain’s French wars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were fought and won on the strength of Cork’s trade in beef and butter. Downstream, too, a major sailcloth industry based on locally supplied linen made its own contribution. Key streets illus. 28. Rocque’s map of Cork City after 1759, with north to the left: this is one of the most detailed maps of Cork City in the eighteenth century. John Rocque was a member of a Huguenot family which emigrated to London from France. He was one of the best known mapmakers of the eighteenth century. Source: Cork Past and Present (Cork City Council): http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/mapsimages/ corkcityinoldmaps/1759rocquesmapofcorkcity/1759_rocque_high_res.pdf (retrieved 30 April 2018). c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 33 either side of the medieval core, Grand Parade to the east and Grattan Street to the west, had been arched over by 1780 (ibid., 28) and St Patrick’s Street by 1783. After a technical setback, St Patrick’s Bridge was opened in 1789 (ibid., 166). The march of progress can be seen on a compressed scale in William Beauford’s map of 1801 (ibid., 157) (Illus. 29). Despite its location in the far south-west of Ireland, the history of Cork shows a surprising number of links with England. Soon after the Anglo-French intervention, for example, monks from St Nicholas’s Priory in Exeter were installed by the bishop of Cork in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre south of the bridge and the church was rededicated accordingly (Power 1994, 277; Jefferies, O’Brien, and Stack 2004, 49). Until the early fifteenth century the burgesses of medieval Cork paid the annual fee farm of eighty marks (£53 6s. 8d.) to the Dublin exchequer as their obligation to the English crown. When they stopped paying on the grounds of the danger of making the journey to Dublin and of feigned or real poverty, an attempt to ensure payment by arresting Cork-based ships at Bristol came to nought. illus. 29. William Beauford’s map of Cork City, 1801: this map shows that the river channel, which ran along the course of St Patrick’s Street, completely covered over. The covering of St Patrick’s Street took place between 1774 and 1783 http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/mapsi mages/corkcityinoldmaps/1801beaufordsmapofcorkcity/1801%20Beauford_original_high_res.pdf (retrieved 30 April 2018). 34 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns Trading relations continued for long thereafter. Dundry stone from near Bristol was widely used for stone dressing and the Tudor knot became a common motif in stonework. Constitutionally Cork belonged to the English and later to the British crown from 1177 to 1922 and its institutions and customs were modelled on English ones for the most part. Throughout this period, Irish would have been commonly spoken around town and lexical trace elements in English usage are known (Crowley et al. 2005, 135–6). Much suburban marketing was probably done through Irish as well as through English, hence the newly established city centre market of the late eighteenth century came to be known as the English Market by 1842; very recently it was deemed worthy of a visit by none other than Queen Elizabeth II (ibid., 312–15). There have been tragic associations as well. The last port of call for the queen of the sea, the Titanic, before her ill-fated maiden voyage in April 1912 was Queenstown in Cork’s inner harbour, now known as Cóbh (pronounced and meaning ‘cove’) (Illus. 30 – 33). Only three years later the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk off the Old Head of Kinsale, again with enormous loss of life; the bodies of many of the victims were brought to Cóbh for burial (ibid., 246–51). During the War of Independence in 1920 Cork’s lord mayor, Terence MacSwiney, died from hunger strike in Brixton Prison, while illus. 30. Cork’s inner harbour, Cóbh, previously called Queenstown. (Photo: R. Swallow). c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 35 illus. 31. Cóbh harbour (Photo: R. Swallow). before the end of that same year much of the city centre had been sacked and burnt by British auxiliary police and Black and Tan soldiers (ibid., 260–64). Yet despite all of this, Hanover Street and other unmistakably English street names still survive as reminders of earlier times. Numerous general and specialized works have been written about the history of Cork, one of the best having Henry Jefferies as its lead author (Jefferies, O’Brien, and Stack 2004). Much more remains to be done. The Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA), like its British equivalent, provides not only detailed information about individual towns and cities; it offers the possibility of making instructive comparisons between them (Clarke and Gearty 2013, 2018). Both programmes operate under the auspices of the International Commission for the History of Towns, which hitherto has sponsored the publication of over five hundred town atlases (Simms and Clarke 2015, 493–513). Cork as a ‘Venice of the north’ will benefit in due course from a comparative approach. Unlike the Italian city, progressive infilling, especially during the eighteenth century, transformed its medieval eastwest dimension of 220 m to a single island 3.2 km from end to end (Crowley et al. 2005, 266). Where are the parallels to this, or are there any at all? For further 36 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 32. Cóbh Heritage Centre: Situated illus. 33. The Old Church Cemetery, outskirts within the restored Victorian railway station, of Cóbh: the cemetery contains a significant numthe heritage centre interprets and presents the ber of important burials, including a number of Irish Emigration story, the tragic fate of the mass graves (one represented in this photograph), Titanic and the Lusitania, and Irish naval and and several individual graves, together containing military history (Photo: R. Swallow). the remains of 193 victims of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania, sunk by a German torpedo off the Old Head of Kinsale during World War One in May 1915. More than 1,100 lives were lost (Photo: R. Swallow). enlightenment we shall have to depend on archaeological investigations; the future of Cork’s past lies in the hands of professional archaeologists. Meanwhile the Fourfaced Liar will continue to preside over an utterly transformed landscape from that known to St Finnbarr and the Vikings. Professor Emeritus Howard B. Clarke Royal Irish Academy CLASHAN IMUD HI LLFO R T, KNOCK AVI LLA, COUNT Y CORK Hillforts are among the most important monuments of the late prehistoric period in Ireland. There are approximately 108 examples of various types, a number that varies c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 37 illus. 34. Clashanimud hillfort. (Photo: W. O’Brien). depending on the criteria chosen (O’Brien and O’Driscoll 2017). They have a wide distribution across the island, with some regional concentrations. Raftery (1972) divided these sites into univallate (Class 1) and multivallate (Class 2) hillforts, as well as inland promontory forts (Class 3). They typically comprise areas of 1–10 ha, but occasionally much larger, enclosed by artificial defences in the form of earthworks, stone walls and/or timber fencing. They are mostly located on the highest point, upper slopes or spurs of a prominent hill or ridge, or a cliff edge, at altitudes of 100–300 m OD, with a small number in higher mountain settings. Most command panoramic views over broad expanses of lowland, indicating that the visual impact of hillforts was an important consideration in their landscape setting. This is particularly true of what is termed the Class 2 hillfort, of which there are some twenty-three confirmed and fourteen possible examples, mostly found in the southern half of Ireland, with a notable concentration in the north Munster/south Leinster region, where many of the largest examples occur. These impressive sites average 7.4 ha in size, with the largest examples up to 84 ha. They comprise two or three (rarely four) concentric circular or oval enclosures, spaced either 20–30 m apart, or over 55 m apart. The enclosing elements of these multiple enclosure hillforts may be made up of different features, including stone walls, earthen banks and ditches, as well as wooden fencing, used separately or in combination. The earliest examples were built during a period of settlement expansion, in the Bishopsland Phase of the Middle Bronze Age, c.1400–1200 B.C. The building of these centres increased significantly during the twelfth and eleventh centuries B.C., during the Roscommon Phase of the Late Bronze Age (1100–1000/900 B.C.), a period of widespread warfare and political turmoil across Ireland. Class 2 hillforts continued 38 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns to be built into the Dowris Phase of the Late Bronze Age (1000/900–700 B.C.), with such well-known examples as Dún Aonghasa on Inishmore, Aran Islands, and Mooghaun, County Clare. Clashanimud hillfort in Cork is a fine example of a Class 2 (multiple enclosure) hillfort. The site is located in ridge-and-valley topography, some 20 km to the west of Cork city in south-west Ireland. This hillfort enjoys commanding views of the midand west Cork landscape, close to the boundary of three historic baronies. The hill summit is surrounded today by two concentric oval enclosures, covering an area of around eight hectares. The inner enclosure is defined by a large earthen bank with external ditch, having a perimeter of 0.8 km. The outer enclosure is a rebuilt earthen bank with a perimeter of 1.02 km, with eight radial walls (of later date) connecting the inner and outer enclosures. The site is heavily overgrown, with no obvious internal features apart from cultivation lazy-beds in the outer enclosure, small rock quarries of 20th-century date, and a small cairn erected in 1841 by the Ordnance Survey on the summit (169 m OD). Archaeological excavation at Clashanimud hillfort in 2004–6 revealed much detail on the construction and history of this great enclosure (O’Brien 2016). These mostly relate to the hillfort defences. The outer enclosure measures 1.04 km in perimeter and is surrounded today by a stone-faced field bank. Originally, it was protected by an earthen bank that was topped by a light timber fence, and had an external rock-cut ditch. The inner defensive line of the hillfort extends 0.68 km in perimeter and is visible today as a low bank with external ditch. Excavation revealed that this bank was built by piling earth and stone from the external ditch. The bank was faced with stone walling on the outside, and was topped with a strong palisade of oak that had a timber revetment on the inside. This would have formed a 6–7 m high barrier protecting the inner enclosure. The original hillfort entrances were located on the western side, where excavation revealed the remains of a stout wooden gate that controlled access to the inner enclosure. The construction of Cashel hillfort was a massive undertaking that required a considerable mobilization of labour from the surrounding region. Several thousand oak posts were used to build the timber palisade protecting the inner enclosure. This, together with digging the almost 2 km of rock-cut ditches and accompanying banks represents a massive investment of time and labour. The discovery of these massive oak fences raises an intriguing possibility that the townland name Clashanimud (‘trench of the timbers’) derived from a folk memory of this Bronze Age site. Radiocarbon dating confirms Clashanimud hillfort was built around 1100 B.C., at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in Ireland. Within a century or so the defensive palisades at this site were deliberately destroyed by fire. This was an act of war, involving the punitive destruction of a regional power centre. The evidence from Clashanimud provides an insight into the disputes that arose between various hillfort groups in the Munster region. The hillfort was not re-built, nor was it occupied in later periods. It remains the largest prehistoric monument in the county of Cork. Professor William O’Brien University College Cork c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 39 CASTLENALACT STONE ROW, COUNTY CORK There was a very significant expansion of human settlement across south-west Ireland during the Middle Bronze Age (O’Brien 2012). This is evident in the several thousand burnt mounds (fulachtaifiadh) known from this period, and in the proliferation of new types of ritual monument built with standing stones. Known as the ‘stone circle complex’, these include two types of axial stone circle, as well as short stone rows, stone pairs, single monoliths, boulder-burials and radial stone cairns. These small monuments are found on their own or together in various combinations. The earliest examples were probably built from 1600 B.C. with some of them erected as late as 800 B.C., a period spanning the Middle to Late Bronze Age in Ireland. They can be regarded as different expressions of religious beliefs that centred around a cult of sun worship. It is estimated that there are some 200 stone rows and pairs in the Cork and Kerry region (Ó Nualláin 1988). These are short straight alignments of two to six standing stones, always orientated in a general north-east/south-west direction. At least seventy-seven rows and ninety-one pairs (including nine anomalous pairs) have been identified in County Cork alone. The occurrence of stone rows and pairs is strongly coincident in Cork and Kerry, with a broadly similar distribution to the axial stone circles to which they are often connected. There is a strong illus. 35. Castlenalact stone row (Photo: W. O’Brien). 40 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns distribution of stone rows and pairs in the mid-Cork region, extending into west Cork and all of the south-western peninsulas. The stone row at Castlenalact is the largest stone row in County Cork. The monument is located on level pasture, on the eastern side of a broad valley. It consists of a row of four upright stones, aligned north-east/south-west, measuring 13.4 m in overall length. The north-east stone is the tallest, measuring 3.4 m high, with the others reducing in height to the south-west, from 2.5 m, to 1.9 m to 1.9 m. The stones are glacial erratics, with no obvious markings apart from a haulage notch on the largest example. The site has not been excavated. The purpose of stone rows like Castlenalact during the Bronze Age is uncertain. Excavation of some sites in Cork has uncovered small cremation burials located close to the stones, suggesting that they partly functioned as grave markers. The consistent alignment of these stone rows to the sunset horizon suggests a religious imperative, probably connected to worship of the sun or possibly the moon. While Castlenalact stone row has not been dated, there is every possibility it was constructed by the builders of the nearby Clashanimud hillfort, as one of their sacred sites in the landscape. Professor William O’Brien University College Cork D R O M B E G S T O N E C I R C L E , C O U N T Y CO R K The complex of monuments known as the Drombeg Stone Circle is located 2.4 km east of the village of Glanmore in County Cork (Irish Grid Reference: W 2468 1185). The site comprises a recumbent stone circle (Illus. 36 and 37), two conjoined circular huts and a fulacht fiadh, or cooking pit (Illus. 38 and 39). The site was excavated by Edward M Fahy in 1957 (Fahy 1959). Fahy found an unsuspected but extensive fulacht fiadh, and the excavation was resumed in 1958 (Fahy 1960). Because Fahy’s excavations took place when C14 dating was in its infancy, Drombeg’s dates are uncertain. The best estimate is that the site dates from 900–600 B.C. and was in use up to A.D. 900 (Pers. Comm., Professor Timothy Champion, July 2017). While no further excavations have been carried out since 1958, the site has featured in wider surveys of stone circles in south west Ireland, including an analysis of their size and location within a spatial framework (Flanagan 2006). Drombeg’s carvings (Meaden 2017c); astronomical alignments (Hicks 1989; Ruggles and Prendergast 1996; Meaden 2017a), and lithic shadow casting have also been examined (Meaden 2017a). Ireland’s stone circles are concentrated in the north and south of the country. A survey by Sean Ó Nualláin (1984) identified ninety-three stone circles in the counties of Cork and Kerry. Aubrey Burl, (2000) subsequently increased the number of possible sites to 123. The function of the circles remains unknown, but they may have hosted periodical social activities (Flanagan 2006, 123).The Cork-Kerry type of circle is a recumbent, or axial, stone circle, that is, one that includes a large monolith lying on its side (see Ó Nualláin 1975, 83–84 for a discussion of the terms ‘axial’ and ‘recumbent’). c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 41 illus. 36. Drombeg recumbent, or axial, stone circle: view from south to north. (Photo: R. Swallow). Axial stone circles are found only in the Grampian region of north-east Scotland and the counties of Cork and Kerry in southern Ireland. The apparent similarity between the circles in two regions so far part from each other raises the question, as yet unanswered, of the monuments sharing a common origin (see Cummings 2017 for a discussion of the Neolithic in Britain and Ireland, and of communication between the two).The Cork-Kerry type of stone circle consists of a ring of free-standing orthostats, uneven in number and symmetrically arranged so that the axial stone is set on the western half of the perimeter, directly opposite the stones marking the entrance to the circle. The entrance stones are generally the tallest, with the orthostats decreasing in height as they approach the lowest stone, which is the axial. Some minor deviations occur, as at Drombeg, where the stones flanking the axial are taller than their neighbours, but the general pattern is maintained (ibid., 84). The number of stones varies from five to nineteen (ibid., 84). Drombeg has seventeen and is regarded as the best of Ireland’s recumbent stone circles (Pers. Comm. Timothy Champion, July 2017). Ó Nualláin noted that although the Cork-Kerry circles individually display no special rules of siting, they nonetheless show a remarkably coherent pattern (Ó Nualláin 1975, 85), while Flanagan, who distinguishes between ‘five stone’ and ‘multiple stone’ 42 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 37. Drombeg recumbent, or axial, stone circle: The Office of Public Works site interpretation panel, which includes a plan of the stone circle. (Photo: R. Swallow). circles, recorded that the multiple stone circles, of which Drombeg is one, tend to be nearer the coast (Flanagan 2006, 88). The site of Drombeg occupies a natural rock terrace at the 70 m contour. The terrace is over 30 m wide and 100 m long. It is backed by a low rock cliff to the north and falls away abruptly to the south. The ground slopes from east to west and is marshy at its western end. It overlooks a bowl-shaped valley beyond which, over a kilometre and a half away to the south, the Atlantic Ocean can just be seen. To the south-east a sheltered creek gives access to the valley from the sea. Drombeg is clearly visible from the floor and opposite sides of the valley, but close up the circle is hidden by the low hills that rise up to the west, north and east. Drombeg’s circle averages 9.30 m in diameter. Of its seventeen freestanding stones (three of which were recovered during the 1957 excavation) sixteen are orthostats, or uprights, while the seventeenth (stone number 9 in Fahy’s plan) is recumbent. All are of sandstone taken from a quarry located 100 metres to the east of the site (Meaden 2017b, 5–37). The stones are 55 cm to 2.05 m long and 20 cm to 65 cm thick. They are symmetrically arranged with the axial stone set directly opposite a pair of tall portal stones. The stones have naturally sloping tops and reduce in height from the portals to the recumbent, although, as has already been noted, the stones flanking the axial are c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 43 illus. 38. Drombeg hut circles: The Office of Public Works site interpretation panel, which includes a plan of two hut circles, with roasting oven in Hut I, and the site of a trough/roasting oven and well, situated to the south. (Photo: R. Swallow). taller than their neighbours. The axial is an impressive flat-topped slab 2.10 m long, 45 cm wide and 90 cm high. Fahy’s 1957 excavation found that all stones except the axial are set in sockets. The axial stands on the subsoil, propped up by small boulders. Fahy found no socket for a possible central stone (Fahy 1959, 4), which had been described by Franklin, (1903) as being ‘rather round’ and ‘standing three feet high’ (cited in Meaden 2017b, 5–37). By 1909 the stone was missing, but in June 2013 Meaden identified a stone matching Franklin’s description 500 metres away at Drombeg House (Meaden 2017 b, 5–37). Fahy noted that the stones, like those at Avebury, comprise both lozenge-shaped (female) and pillar-shaped (male) stones, a gendered interpretation ‘connected with a fertility cult’ (Fahy 1959, 20–21). As regards petroglyphs, the axial stone has two shallow cup marks, one surrounded by an oval carving on its upper surface; both Fahy (1959) and Twohig (1981) proposed that this oval carving was an axe-like outline, but Meaden interprets it as a vulva (Meaden 2017b, 5–37). An ithyphallus is carved upon the northern side of stone number 17 (Meaden 2017b, 5–37). In common with many other circles in the region, Drombeg’s main axis is northeast/south-west. At the winter solstice the sun sets in a notch on the horizon aligned with the axis. This solstitial alignment was first recorded by Somerville (1909). Ruggles 44 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 39. Drombeg trough/roasting oven, viewed from the north-west. (Photo: R. Swallow). and Prendergast (1996, 5) found that the Irish and Grampian alignments differ, with the Scottish sites exhibiting a strong pattern of alignment in relation to hilltops and the rising and setting of the moon, a difference which may argue against the circles in the two regions sharing a common origin. Meaden’s 2012 survey noted instances of the shadows of ‘male’ pillar stones falling upon, or uniting with, ‘female’ lozenge stones. Meaden calculated that the dates on which the lithic shadows make union are 45–46 days apart, starting with the winter solstice. Similar shadow effects have also been reported for other Irish sites, including Newgrange and Knowth (Meaden 2017b, 5–37). Meaden argued that these effects attest to the precision of Neolithic planning, and suggested an explanation in terms of the ancient worldview, known as the hieros gamos, or the Marriage of the Gods between Sky and Earth (Meaden 2017b, 5–37) The 1957 excavation revealed a compact gravel surface within the circle and a central pit which contained an inverted pottery vessel concealing the cremated remains of a youth – it was not possible to say whether the bones were those of a male or of a female. Fahy (1959) suggested the burial may have been dedicatory in nature. The unbroken gravelled floor was in places 10 cm thick and comprised miscellaneous pebbles and flakes of slaty rock with an occasional lump of quartzite. The inurned c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 45 cremation lay in a pit beneath the floor; a smaller pit nearby contained a deposit of dark soil, while another small pit contained silt and stones. There was no turf or humus beneath the floor. The pits were dug directly into the subsoil and their surface backfill was of yellow subsoil (Fahy 1959, 6). Fahy noted that the burial had been carried out with great care, with the sweepings of the cremation fire being packed into an already broken pot and concealed from view by the meticulous spreading of clean subsoil over the burial pit. The pot was of coarse fabric and Fahy considered that it was allied to or descended from the Lough Gur Class II family of wares, and would therefore be late Neolithic. A pinch of charcoal was dropped onto the grave, soil scattered over it, and hand-picked stones thrown on the area enclosed by the circle, forming a pavement within the monument. The interior of the circle was subsequently maintained in a clean condition. Fahy noted that as the pavement lay directly upon the in-filled sockets and the subsoil it could be said with some certainty that the burial was a primary feature of the site (Fahy1959, 9–15). Apart from possible flecks of charcoal-cremated bone in the second pit, no finds were made in the other pits. A small convex flint scraper was found in the socket of one stone, a split pebble of flint in the socket of another and a second small convex flint scraper was found above the socket of a third stone. Charcoal from the burial deposit was subsequently given a C14 date of A.D. 600 (Fahy 1959, 9–10; McAulay and Watts 1961 35). Fahy’s finds are comparable to those excavated at other stone circles in the region (Fahy 1960, 1). Some 55 m to the west of the circle are the remains of two round huts joined together (Illus. 38). The eastern hut contained a roasting oven. A stone causeway led from the huts to a cooking place containing a hearth, a stone-lined spring or well, and a trough or pit where water was heated (Fahy 1960, 1). Cooking pits are the commonest field monument in Irish Pre-History, and Drombeg is one of the best examples. While the pits are generally considered to be for cooking food, other uses, such as tanning or brewing, are also possible. Soil samples from other fulacht fiadhs support a variety of uses (Pers. Comm., Champion, July 2017). The stratification of the cooking site indicated three distinct phases of development, the last being the laying down of the causeway. The pit and the roasting oven were contemporary structures. The 1958 excavation also revealed a system of water management comprising a well and primary and secondary drains. Fahy (1960) noted that as the earliest drain was constructed in the basal layer, the well and its enclosing bank must postdate the primary activity on the site. A saddle quern was found roofing the drain and a holed stone and a stone disc near the well. Fahy surmised that these all originated from the hut, giving support to the idea of more than one period of use. Water from the well was used to fill the cooking trough (Illus. 38 and 39), and a mound of burnt stone attested to the method of cooking. Fahy experimented with the effectiveness of hot stones in boiling water, and established that it was possible to boil seventy-five gallons of water in fifteen minutes (Fahy 1960, 9–10). A C14 date obtained from charcoal from the cooking trough set its final use at or about the end of the fifth century AD (Fahy 1960; McAulay and Watts 1961, 35), a date that may mark the termination of a period of re-use. 46 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns CONCLUSION In considering the relationship between the stone circle, the huts, and the cooking place Fahy concluded that the structures at Drombeg were of a permanent rather than a temporary nature and suggested that their users ‘were possessed of a purposeful outlook which envisaged a prolonged, though perhaps periodic, use of the site’ (Fahy 1960, 15). Assessing the evidence from similar sites, Fahy raised the possibility that the hut and cooking places at Drombeg were used, if not by those who initially erected the stone circle, at least by those who frequented the circle in later times (ibid.). Fahy speculated that as the cooking facilities greatly exceeded the number of persons who could have occupied the hut at any one time, perhaps hunters, or people who foregathered at the circle, were catered for as the occasion arose (Fahy 1960). In the decades since Fahy carried out his excavations archaeological techniques have advanced considerably. Examinations of similar monuments in Ireland and in Britain suggest, for example, that such sites are more extensive than they appear to be. Fahy himself noted a need for further investigation to determine whether the features and finds he had identified were isolated phenomena or common to other such monuments, while more recently Flanagan (2006) has suggested developing topographical maps and investigating the vegetative cover. Soil, pollen, and lipid analyses would also throw light on the purpose and patterns of occupation, and what people did when they were there. The potential for a new and much deeper understanding of Drombeg is substantial. Sheila Wild LISNACAHERAGH, GARRANES, COUNTY CORK This impressive earthwork is located on a prominent ridge in Garranes townland, parish of Templemartin, some 15 km west of Cork City in south-west Ireland. The circular enclosure is surrounded by three closely spaced bank-and-ditch combinations, with an overall diameter of 110 m and an internal diameter of 67 m. The banks average 1.5 m in height to a maximum of 3.4 m, while the partly silted ditches on the outside of each bank are 2.7–4 m in width and 1.3–1.8 m in depth (the outer ditch is substantially infilled). The original entrance to the ringfort is located on the eastern side, where there is a causewayed opening across the defences. From annalistic, genealogical, and hagiographical sources, as well as early bardic poetry, the ringfort at Lisnacaheragh, Garranes, has long been identified as ‘Ráth Raithleann’, the seat of the UíEchach Muman, a branch of the Eóghanacht. The Eóghanacht were a loose federation of dynastic groups who looked to the prehistoric EóganMór as their eponymous ancestor. Their various branches dominated political life in the Munster region until the twelfth century. The western Eóghanacht included the kingdoms of Loch Lein based around Killarney, and the minor kingdom of Raithlind in Mid Cork. The Eóghanacht Raithlind took their name from Raithliu, the site of their local óenach. The later baronies of Kinalea and Kinalmeaky in south and mid Cork preserve the names Cenél Áeda and Cenélm Béicce, two of their most c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 47 illus. 40. Ringfort at Lisnacaheragh, Garranes. (Photo: W. O’Brien). important septs. Feidlimid Mac Tigernaig of the Eóghanacht Raithlind was the first king of Munster and his death in A.D. 590 is recorded in the annals. The association between Lisnacaheragh ringfort and the documented royal site of Rath Raithleann is supported by excavation evidence of high status occupation. The site was first investigated in 1937 by Professor Sean P. Ó Ríordáin of the Department of Archaeology, University College Cork. This was one of the first scientific excavations of an earthen ringfort (rath) in Ireland, and one of the first examples to be securely dated (Ó Ríordáin 1942). The investigation revealed a well-defended trivallate enclosure with an elaborate entrance protected by a series of gates. Postholes and other indicators of occupation were found in the interior, though perhaps surprisingly no definite house plans could be identified. The most significant finds in terms of dating are a range of wine amphorae and other ceramics of fifth to seventh century A.D. date, which originated in the Mediterranean region and France (Doyle 2009). The Ó Ríordáin excavation uncovered important evidence of craft activities, dated by metalwork finds and the imported pottery to the late fifth/early sixth centuries A.D. One of the largest trenches (Site D) proved to be a metalworking area, leading the excavator to suggest that the site had been exclusively occupied by a group of craftsmen. Excavation of Site D uncovered a dense ‘black layer’ containing charcoal and finds associated with non-ferrous metalworking. These included some thirty-nine complete clay crucibles, 2,500 fragments of pyramidal and flat-bottomed crucibles, a clay tuyère, vitrified furnace clay fragments, some thirty complete or broken clay moulds for rings and pins, at least six stone ingot moulds, and a possible stone crucible. Metal finds included a freshly cast bronze pin, unfinished bronze pin-head, unfinished 48 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns rectangular bronze object, fragment of a bronze casting, a bronze casting jet, a length of bronze wire, a bronze ingot, and other items of waste bronze, as well as a lead ring and two lumps of tin. Iron implements were also used, with finds of two pincers, a shears, and three awls. There is evidence of other specialized crafts, with the discovery of rods of millefiori glass and enamel. The excavator saw these finds as pointing to an autonomous community of specialist craft workers, a view no longer widely accepted. Metalworkers were held in high regard in early medieval Ireland, but were not of such high standing as to allow them control or sole occupancy of such an important centre. The craft workers at Garranes would have worked under the patronage of a minor king, whose settlement was a tribal centre that included domestic and industrial activities within its organisation (Comber 1998). A second archaeological excavation was conducted at Lisnacaheragh ringfort in 1990–92 by an independent researcher, Mary O’Donnell. This unpublished project excavated four trenches in the interior of the ringfort over sixteen weeks. However, the excavation was not fully complete when work ended in 1992. One of the aims of the O’Donnell excavation was to investigate the apparent absence of residential buildings in the interior of the ringfort. Part of a built structure in her Trench 1 was located on the western side of the interior. This comprised a small portion of what was then interpreted as a roundhouse with slot trench foundations. This was apparently burnt down, with evidence of charcoal deposits, charred wattle and burnt soils. The investigation of this structure was eventually concluded in summer 2017, when the author conducted further excavation at the site. This revealed the outline of a substantial roundhouse, approximately 9 m in overall diameter and 64 m2 in area, built close to the inner bank of the ringfort. The chronology of Lisnacaheragh ringfort is based on finds of datable pottery and a recent series of twelve radiocarbon dates. The latter support the original dating of this ringfort to the fifth and sixth centuries A.D., which was based on the discovery of imported Late Roman pottery in the 1937 excavation. The exotic nature of those finds in a centre of specialist metalworking supports Ó Ríordáin’s interpretation of Lisnacaheragh as a royal site of the Eóganacht Raithlinn, named after their seat of power – the fort of Raithliu. Scholars have argued that Raithliu was initially constructed for occupation by the founder members of the Eóganacht Raithlinn around the fifth century A.D., and was used as a place for tribal gatherings, trade and exchange, and specialised craft-working. As the power structure of that group altered from the sixth century onwards, so too did the significance of Lisnacaheragh. By the seventh century the ringfort may have ceased to be used for permanent residence, acquiring instead special use as a place of periodic oénach assembly. This may explain the apparent contradiction between recurring references in literary sources to the importance of Rath Raithleann as late as the eleventh or twelfth centuries, and the notable absence of archaeological remains inside that ringfort from the eight century onwards. Professor William O’Brien University College Cork c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 49 T HE E ARLY MEDIEVAL MON ASTERY O F TOUREEN P E A K A U N , C O U N T Y TI P P E R A R Y The site now known as Toureen Peakaun was Cluain Aird Mo-Becóc which was founded by an individual called Beccán (Mo-Becóc) who died in A.D. 690 (Annals of Ulster) (Illus. 41). It is situated at the east end of the Glen of Aherlow in the northern foothills of the Galtee Mountains. The remains include the ruins of a small, largely Romanesque stone church, several composite stone crosses, a corner-post shrine, a sundial, and over sixty lesser pieces of sculpture, mostly small stones inscribed with a name and a simple cross, dating to the seventh to eighth centuries. In the early ninth-century Martyrology of Óengus, and in later hagiography, Beccán is portrayed as a monastic leader with a penchant for arduous ascetic practices including cross vigils (Ó Riain 2011, 93–4). Whether or not he was ‘Beccán eremita’, one of the individuals to whom Cummian addressed his c. A.D. 633 letter exhorting Irish clerics to follow the Roman method of calculating Easter, it is clear that Beccán of Toureen was linked to this circle of Romani. One of the name-stones at the site commemorates both a Cumméne and a Ladcen, most likely Laidcen of Clonfert-Mulloe, one of the other addressees of Cummian’s Paschal Letter; both individuals died in A.D. illus. 41. Toureen Peakaun Monastery, County Tipperary (previously Cluain Aird MoBecóc). (Photo: T. Ó Carragáin). 50 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns 661, though the name-stone may be a little later (Maloney 1964). The east cross bears the longest inscription of any Irish high cross, and may incorporate the female Anglo-Saxon name, Osgyd (Charles-Edwards 2002, 117–18). On the basis of letter forms, the inscription can be dated to around A.D.700, making this one of the earliest datable high crosses in Ireland or Britain (Okasha and Forsyth 2001, 295). All of this indicates that Toureen was a cosmopolitan establishment at the forefront of contemporary doctrinal debates and an innovator in monumental stone sculpture and potentially manuscript production. At the time of its floruit in the seventh and eighth centuries, the territory in which Toureen is situated was controlled by the kings of Munster based at Cashel, some twenty kilometres to the northeast (Gleeson 2014, 342–94). The subdivision of that territory in which Toureen is sited, later preserved approximately as the parish of Killardry (‘Church of the High King’), seems to have been outlying royal demesne. The Glen of Aherlow was heavily wooded into the post-medieval period, and there is a striking paucity of early medieval settlements such as ringforts in the vicinity of Toureen, in stark contrast to the royal core-land closer to Cashel. Thus, when siting Toureen, Beccán and his patrons apparently sought to strike a balance between ascetic seclusion in a sylvan setting on the one hand and royal associations and wider ecclesiastical links on the other. Excavations inside the Romanesque chapel uncovered several early medieval burials oriented on one or more earlier wooden structures (Trench F). Due to poor preservation, the sex of only one – probably male – individual could be determined. The size of one of the grave-cuts suggests it was for a child. While this could indicate a mixed community, children, were, of course, also members of monastic communities. One of the Toureen name stones commemorates ‘Finánpuer’, ‘the boy Finán’ (Manning 1991, 211–2). The use of Latin in this inscription may have religious significance, meaning perhaps ‘oblate’ (Okasha and Forsyth 2001, 283). While it was not possible to determine the sizes or forms of the buildings on which these burials may have been aligned, substantial intercutting postholes at the north-east of the trench possibly represent one of the corners of successive wooden churches, one probably dating to the ninth century, the other to the tenth (Ó Carragáin 2017, 71). The site was delimited by a c.170 m diameter curvilinear enclosure (Illus. 42). At the east this runs halfway up the valley side, showing with particular clarity that, rather than lines of defence, ecclesiastical enclosures were primarily about identifying a place as sacred. Excavations showed that the enclosure belongs to the first phase of activity at the site in the later seventh century (Trenches A, E and D). It comprised a modest c. 2 m wide U-shaped ditch with internal bank, the latter much-denuded. While it is possible that stretches of the ditch were cleaned out, no attempt was made to re-cut it. Several trenches were excavated inside the enclosure. They all produced evidence for occupation from the later seventh century to the ninth. In some cases, occupation layers had been removed by agricultural disturbance so only dug features survived. Due to acid soils preservation of bone and plant remains is poor, so the excavations provide few insights on issues such as monastic diet. In an area between two palaeochannels at the eastern perimeter of the site (Trench D), a roughly circular area, 8.8 m in diameter, was delimited by a pair of parallel post-and-wattle c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 51 illus. 42. The c.170 m diameter curvilinear enclosure surrounding the church of Toureen Peakaun (at centre). The illustration shows the sites of archaeological excavation and survey carried out by the paper’s author, c. 2006 – 2008. (Illustration: T. Ó Carragáin). fences within a water-filled ditched. Access to this little enclosure was via a bridge and gate at the northwest. At its centre was a small north-south oriented rectilinear building, represented by postholes and slots, with a likely doorway facing the gateway and the church at the centre of the site. Charcoal rich deposits with a relatively high number of burnt bone inclusions support the idea that it was for habitation. Small ancillary structures, possibly for storage, were also found. This little complex was carefully designed and represents considerable investment of labour and materials, but seems to have been meant to accommodate someone living a frugal life. Though there are no exact parallels 52 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns in the Irish archaeological record, its form, along with textual evidence, supports the possibility that it was the enclosure of an abbot or senior ascetic (Ó Carragáin 2017, 76). This complex lasted no more than a generation or so. Sometime in the eighth century this area of the site was entirely reorganised. The ditch was filled in and the fences removed, and, though it remained a distinct and bounded area, with new linear fences and a gate, it was now used for industrial and craft activity, most notably smithing. Apart from that in the church, none of the trenches produced evidence for activity after the early ninth century. While it attracted a Viking raid in A.D. 833, the site was already in decline by then. Dr Tomás Ó Carragáin University College Cork G L ANW O R TH CA ST LE , C O U N T Y C O R K Glanworth Castle was the caput (head manor) of the Anglo-Norman lords of the cantred (English equivalent: Hundred) of Fermoy. It is strategically located at the edge of 10 m high cliffs overlooking a bridge across the River Funshion. The bridge probably dates to the early seventeenth century, but may have replaced a medieval one, and this location is always likely to have been a fording point. A detailed topographical tract, Críchad an Chaoilli, dating to the mid-twelfth century, shows that the lands illus. 43. Glanworth Castle, County Cork. (Photo: T. Ó Carragáin). c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 53 centred on Glanworth previously constituted the principal estate of the kings of the early medieval kingdom of Fir Maige, the Eóganacht Glennamnach. This was a powerful group that had often supplied kings of Munster based at Cashel. Extensive excavations in the castle uncovered no early medieval layers or finds, however, so on current evidence we must assume that the Eóganacht Glennamnach were based at a different site, albeit very nearby. The first lord of Fermoy was Raymond ‘Le Gros’ Fitzgerald, but the lordship soon passed to his de Caunteton (Condon) nephews. After the death of Nicholas de Caunteton in 1247, the manor of Glanworth and the lordship of Fermoy passed to his daughter and heiress, Amice, and her husband, David de Roche (MacCotter 1997, 90–3). Despite the best efforts of the Condons, the Roches generally retained the lordship during the latter half of the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century they greatly increased their possessions to the south and east of Glanworth and it remained one of their two principal strongholds throughout the rest of the Middle Ages (Nicholls 1993, 185–6; MacCotter 2009, 2). A corporate borough is first recorded at Glanworth in 1299, but had probably been in existence for some time by then. Nothing survives of the medieval town, but most of it was probably south of the castle where its modern successor now stands. The modern roofless Church of Ireland church at the centre of a graveyard about 150 m northwest of the castle is almost certainly on the site of the medieval parish church. A medieval structure incorporated into the graveyard wall at the southeast may be the remains of a priest’s residence (Manning 2009, 9, 141). The remains of a Dominican friary, founded by the Roches in 1475, are still visible about 300 m north of the castle (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 225; MacCotter 2009, 2). Conleth Manning carried out excavations at the castle between 1982 and 1984, primarily to facilitate its conservation and presentation (Manning 2009, 9). His analysis of the complex’s development can be summarised as follows (Manning 2009, 135–48). Initially it seems to have been delimited by cliffs and steep ground at the east and south and by a curvilinear earthwork at the west and north. Though it remains unexcavated, this earthwork is evident inan aerial photograph and Manning interpreted it as a partial ringwork. Within it stood a long, low freestanding hall (now largely destroyed) and a separate residential block. The latter incorporated the principal chamber with basement below and attic above, and was accessed via a first-floor doorway in the north wall facing the hall (O’Keeffe 2015, 220). Probably in the first half of the thirteenth century, the earthwork was replaced by a stone curtain wall, which incorporated the north wall of the hall, and which featured a rectangular gatehouse at the west providing access to the, now somewhat more compact, castle. The gatehouse had prisons or strong-rooms and possibly a drawbridge. Sometime between the later thirteenth and early fifteenth century, the gate was blocked and the gatehouse was extended northwards, possibly for residential use. A new gate was inserted into the curtain wall south of it. Either in this phase, or during the fifteenth century, the original east-west oriented hall seems to have been replaced by a new one running north-south along the top of the river cliff at the east of the complex. In the fifteenth century a tall garderobe tower was added to the extended gatehouse, which may itself have been given an additional storey at this time to make it appear like a tower house; only the garderobe tower survives to this height today, however. It may have been then 54 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns that twin vaults were inserted over the ground floor of the thirteenth-century chamber block. Possibly after a hiatus of a few decades, the curtain wall was extended to encompass more space at the west and south, and circular turrets were added to three of its four corners. The main entrance was moved again, this time to the north, which must have necessitated a new approach road to the castle. Finally, in the seventeenth century, a kitchen and bakehouse were added along the west wall. Manning, (2009, 144–45) links this with the phasing out of the Gaelic practice of levying soldiers on the general population. Instead, they were housed in the castle and needed to be catered for. The floor of the bread oven was formed of quern and mills stones, chosen to withstand the heat. Lord Maurice Roche was a member of the Catholic Confederate Supreme Council and played a prominent part in the wars between 1641 and 1650, as a result of which all his lands and possessions were confiscated in 1652 and he and his children left destitute (Manning 2009, 4). Glanworth was granted to Captain Peter Courthope of the Crowellian army, but he did not live there. Excavations indicate that relatively low status occupation continued until the middle of the eighteenth century. By the early nineteenth century it was a ruin and became the subject of several views by painters and antiquarians. Dr Tomás Ó Carragáin University College Cork KILCREA F RIARY A ND CASTLE, COUNTY CORK Kilcrea friary is located in the barony of Muskerry, County Cork. It was founded in 1465 by Cormac Láidir MacCarthaigh. Kilcrea (CillChré) was founded for the Franciscan Observants, who were present on the site, with interruptions, until the 1880s. It was taken over by the Board of Works in 1892. The overall plan of Kilcrea follows the general layout of Irish Franciscan monasteries of the period, incorporating a church and domestic ranges arranged around a cloister. The church comprises a nave and chancel divided by a tall slender tower. Overall the architecture is plain. The nave also features a south aisle and a transept and transept aisle. There is a sacristy and scriptorium housed in a gable-ended building between the east range and the chancel. This is a sixteenth-century century addition and features one of the most interesting rooms of the friary. The Rennes Manuscript with links to Kilcrea is now housed in Rennes, France. The cloister is located on the northern side of the church. Its east, west and north sides are flanked by two-storeyed ranges. Apart from the ‘garth’ area nothing survives of the Kilcrea cloister, except stone corbels. However, cloister-arcade fragments were recovered during a clean-up scheme. Kilcrea follows closely the basic Franciscan plan in the layout of its domestic ranges. The interior of the friary now functions as a burial ground. A variety of burial monuments occur, headstones, tombs, seventeenth-century grave-slabs, mural plaques and a mausoleum. Among the more interesting is the tomb of the legendary Art O’Leary, on whom the famous eighteenth-century lament, Caoineadh Airt UíLaoghaoire, was based. c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s illus. 44. Kilcrea Friary, County Cork. (Photo: D. Sheehan/W. O’Brien). illus. 45. Kilcrea Castle Tower, County Cork. (Photo: R. Swallow). 55 56 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns Among the artefacts associated with Kilcrea are an ivory crucifixion figure of seventeenth-century date, a silver reliquary of fifteenth-/sixteenth-century date and a bronze crucifix probably of fifteenth-century date. Approximated 1 km to the west of the friary is an impressive late medieval tower house. This is reputed to have been built by the founder of the friary, Cormac MacCarthaigh, in the middle of the fifteenth century. The stone head on the northeast corner of the building is considered to be a representation of Cormac. The tower house is located on an oval mound in a flat marshy area close to the River Bride in the Barony of Muskerry. The castle consists of a five-storey rectangular tower with a rectangular bawn attached to its east side. The bawn is a later addition to the original tower, and remains intact except for the west end of the north wall. There is a twostorey tower at the south-east corner. The bawn is surrounded by a water-logged fosse that is traversed by the causeway of a former railway line. The castle tower is entered by a pointed arch doorway in the ground floor. The entrance lobby features a murder hole overhead. Access to upper floors is by means of a mural stairs in the south-east corner of the tower. Each floor is lit by centrally placed single lights with large internal window embrasures. The fourth-floor, however, features double-lights with external hood-mouldings. This floor also featured a fireplace and garderobe. A wicker centred vault occurs under the first and fourth floors. The wall-walk remains intact but the battlements are entirely gone. Other defensive features include the cruciform gun-loops at the base of the spiral stairs. Denise Sheehan University College Cork W A T E R F O R D’S M E D I E V A L MU SE U M Waterford in County Waterford has an exceptional collection of archaeological and historical artefacts held in the renovated nineteenth-century-dated Granary building on Merchant’s Quay. In 2006, Waterford City Council made a far-reaching decision to regenerate what is known as the historic Viking Triangle, adjacent to the retail and commercial city centre. This regeneration was part of the culturally-led urban renewal strategy for Waterford’s historic core, providing the optimal presentation of Ireland’s oldest city, and the development of its numerous potential tourist attractions. This bold decision included relocating the previous Medieval Museum from one to three separate buildings. These three new locations are all closely located within the Viking Triangle, and together form the new Waterford Museum of Treasures complex. Of these three buildings, two were historically significant, but in need of considerable refurbishment: Reginald’s Tower on the Waterfront, which dates back to 1003, and the eighteenth-century former Church of Ireland’s Bishop’s Palace. The third location is the new build Medieval Museum, the doors of which opened to the public first in 2012. This entire project to create the Waterford Museum of Treasures complex, along with other associated regeneration works, was in readiness for the celebration in 2014 of Waterford’s 1100th anniversary as Ireland’s oldest city. c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 57 illus. 46. Model showing the complex, restricted and congested site of Waterford Medieval Museum (highlighted in pink) constrained by an adverse range of medieval, eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century buildings, and shoe-horned around the back of the Cathedral. (Photograph/Copyright: Philip Lauterbach, with kind permission to publish granted to the authors of the paper). The twenty-first-century purpose-built Medieval Museum Project is significant for several reasons. The location, within the area known as the Viking Triangle, is fundamental to provide an overall coherence in the City’s presentation of so many significant and extraordinary existing architectural, archaeological and historical features. Although the requirement and concept had previously existed, the delivery only came to fruition during a period of great austerity in Ireland following the 2007–8 financial crisis. A unique solution was needed for a unique site. 58 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 47. Waterford Medieval Museum: On the west gable of the museum is ‘The Waterford Lady’, a six metre high sculpted figure, which is based on a tiny thirteenth-century belt mount found during the archaeological excavations on site. (Photo: R. Swallow). The project initiative was driven by Museum Director, Eamonn McEneaney, who worked within the Waterford Council’s wider historic city centre regeneration scheme. The council assembled a multi-disciplinary team, led by Museum professionals and the Architecture unit of Waterford Council, in close collaboration with planners, archaeologists, conservationists, building estate department, roads and housing officers. The location of the new museum was to overly a known archaeological site: the twelfthcentury Lower Undercroft (also known as Choristers’ Hall) of what was the medieval deanery. A six-year detailed archaeological site investigation in the 1990s had greatly improved the understanding of the historical value of the cultural area. The main design effort for the new structure was preceded in 2010–11 by a licensed archaeological excavation, director Órla Scully (2010). In an early phase of the excavations, digging through a closely adjacent Viking earthen bank, Scully had found a small smelting pit. This yielded a reliable C14 date of A.D. 898 to A.D. 920, the earliest date attributed to Waterford city centre to date, coinciding with the abandonment of the Viking Longphort in Woodstown, 5 kms up river. The broad archaeological sequence from the Lower Undercroft site in Waterford included a small number of prehistoric flint tools; settlement activity from the early medieval/Viking era; later-dated stratigraphy, including evidence of the clay ditch and c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 59 illus. 48. Waterford Medieval Museum was completed in 2012, and was built upon the site of a thirteenth-century Deanery; its clergyman then administered the adjacent Christ Church Cathedral. Around 1520, the upper floors of the Deanery were destroyed, probably by fire, leaving only the Chorister’s Hall standing – the remains shown here. In 1840, the then Dean created a garden on the roof of the Chorister’s Hall, which by then, was below ground. (Photo: R. Swallow). bank that preceded the twelfth-century city walls; artefacts in medieval refuse pits; and sixteenth- to late nineteenth-century city boundary walls (Scully 2010). The Museum design objective was to both strengthen the characteristic of the underlying archaeological and historic layers, and create something new and contrasting with the existing city architecture. The new museum was designed in-house by Waterford City Council Architects, Rupert Maddock, Bartosz Rojowski and Agnieszka Rojowska, and provided a new architectural landmark and major visitor destination in the South-East of Ireland (Pers. Comm. Eamonn McEneaney, July 2017). The front façade of the new museum is designed in a semi-circular, streamlined form, which is effectively wrapped around the back of the extant Neo-Classical Christ Church Cathedral, creating a link between the two city squares on each side. The warm facade is made of Dundry facing stone, which was used in the original medieval Cathedral and Choristers’ Hall on the site, and provides a contrast to the cool, crisp eighteenth-century surrounding structures. More than just a building façade, the new museum is a large-scale architectural sculpture. There is an emphasis on the two gables, both visible from the adjacent city squares. 60 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 49. Waterford Medieval Museum: Waterford’s Great Charter Roll, dating from 1215 to 1372. (Photo: R. Swallow). At the approach to the main entrance, the entire width of recessed vertical glazing slides apart, to allow the ground floor interior to open onto Cathedral Square; the distinction between the inside and outside thus disappears. Glass vision panels provide views below the floor of the entrance foyer to the museum, to the carefully conserved Choristers’ Hall. One of the design challenges was to incorporate the below ground level medieval structure of Choristers’ Hall into the new building. Internal layout was strongly influenced by the shape of the site and adjoining buildings. With four levels, the lower ground floor is a multifunctional space providing direct access to the Chorister’s Hall; the ground floor incorporates the entrance lobby, museum shop and reception; the first and second floor are exhibition galleries and audio visual features. The new structure of the museum is entirely cast-in-situ concrete. Material palette was restricted to concrete, Irish pippy oak, heather Welsh slate and Dundry stone for the façade. The windowless galleries have simple internal concrete finishes, being astute, cost effective, and not distracting visitor focus away from the contents on display. c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 61 illus. 50. Waterford Medieval Museum: King Edward IV’s bearing sword with scabbard and mace was presented to the city shortly after the king came to the throne in 1461. (Photo: R. Swallow). The Medieval Museum Contents The Medieval Museum, part of the multi-award-winning Waterford Museum of Treasures, is essentially a city museum, displaying artefacts that have been associated with Waterford since the medieval period. The artefacts presented reflect the city’s importance as a trading port and its loyalty to the English Crown; many of these are therefore of international significance. There are a number of artefacts of particular significance. One of the earliest surviving medieval ring-brooches in Europe, likely to have been a love-token, may have been made in Waterford in about 1220, and was found during the city centre excavations which took place between 1986 and 1992. It is of high quality, made of gold with corded rims and filigree scroll-work with tiny gold balls, set with four glass stones in tubular collets. This brooch was found during the Waterford excavations during 1986–1992 (Hurley, Scully, and McCutcheon 1997). 62 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 51. Waterford Medieval Museum: Embroidered Magi Cope. (Photo: R. Swallow). The Great Charter Roll is part of Waterford’s historic municipal collection, and is displayed unrolled to its full four-metre length and is unique in fourteenth-century England and Ireland (Walton 1992; McEneaney 1995; McEneaney and Ryan 2004, 58–79) (Illus. 49). It consists of fifteen original documents of varying sizes and dating from 1215 to 1372, bound together with eighteen specially commissioned paintings all on vellum. All these documents and paintings were compiled in about 1373 in support of Waterford’s claim in the King’s Chancery in London, to a monopoly forcing all ships entering Waterford harbour to unload there, with the exception of those ships belonging to the lordship of Leinster. This claim had embroiled the city in a long and sometimes violent dispute with the nearby town of New Ross. The original documents provided evidence to support Waterford’s claim. The uniqueness lies in the paintings which may have been added to engage the attention of those determining the case and to act as a prompt for Waterford’s lawyers in the Chancery, or even to intimidate the opposing New Ross. The paintings include seven of the earliest images of kings of England, including two of the reigning monarch Edward III; eight of royal governors of Ireland who had supported Waterford’s claim in the past; the earliest representations of Irish Mayors; and the earliest representation of an Irish judge. The judge Alexander de Nottingham had presided over an enquiry into the dispute in 1266. The evidence given to the enquiry is c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 63 illus. 52. Waterford Medieval Museum: Spanish seventeenth-century iron chest, in which the Cathedral vestments were stored. (Photo: R. Swallow). included in the Charter Roll and the image of the judge placed alongside it (McEneaney and Ryan 2004, 74). Conservation work has confirmed that the document was reduced to a roll for easy transportation (McEneaney and Ryan 2004, 60). Although determined in Waterford’s favour in 1373, the dispute was not finally resolved until 1518. King Edward IV’s bearing sword with scabbard and mace was presented to the city shortly after the king came to the throne in 1461 (McEneaney and Ryan 2004, 86) (Illus. 50). The mayor at that time had requested that part of the city’s rent due to the king should be given back to the city for the repair of its fortifications. The king not only reduced the rent but also presented the city with these two items of civic regalia to be carried before the mayor. The cloth-of-gold vestments are a remarkable survival (Illus. 51). They comprise three Benediction copes and the only set of medieval high mass vestments in Ireland. (A fourth Waterford cope is on display in the National Museum of Ireland). Of the finest craftsmanship, they date from the 1460s and are probably made from Italian silk woven in Florence, with decorative panels embroidered in Flanders. It is not known how or when Waterford Cathedral acquired them: they are first mentioned in the will of Dean Collyn made in 1481 (MacLeod 1952; McEneaney and Ryan 2004, 92). Waterford was a very English city, in the sense that it had an Anglo-Norman 64 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 53. Waterford Medieval Museum: The Great Parchment Book of Waterford is a manuscript comprising 233 folios of vellum setting out civic records dating from 1356 to 1649. (Photo: R. Swallow). population loyal to the English monarch, but also loyal to Rome. After the Reformation and the establishment of the protestant Church of Ireland (McEneaney and Ryan 2004, 92), the vestments and cathedral silver were initially retained by the newly protestant Cathedral until1577, when Dean Cleere placed them in the custody of the Catholic City Councilin a pledge for £400.They were used again briefly in the Church of Ireland Cathedral services between 1637 and 1641 after Lord Deputy Wentworth demanded their return, but reverted to the Council after the Irish rebellion in 1641. Cromwell besieged Waterford in 1649 but was forced to raise the siege. The citizens of Waterford took advantage of the opportunity to hide their treasures before his sonin-law Ireton returned in 1650 to renew the siege. This time the city fell, but the vestments remained hidden until 1773 when the medieval cathedral was demolished: they were then found locked in chests buried in a vault. The Anglican bishop then gave them to the Catholic Dean. The vestments underwent extensive cleaning and conservation work before installation in the new museum. Also displayed close to the vestments is one of the iron chests into which the vestments were packed before they were hidden. It is Spanish, dates from the c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 65 seventeenth century, and is fitted with a very secure locking system. Incongruously, given the use to which it was put, it is engraved with images of South American women wearing nothing but plumed headdresses (Illus. 52). King Henry VIII’s Cap of Maintenance, a cap worn by the monarch under the crown, is the only item from his wardrobe to survive. Henry sent it as a gift to the city of Waterford in 1536, together with a bearing sword, in recognition of the city’s help and loyalty during a rebellion in Dublin in 1534.The cap is made of red velvet from Lucca, Italy, and embroidered with the Tudor rose and marguerites, the symbol of Margaret Beaufort, the king’s grandmother.It was probably made at the royal court (McEneaney and Ryan 2004, 122). The Great Parchment Book of Waterford is a manuscript comprising 233 folios of vellum setting out civic records dating from 1356 to 1649 (Illus. 53). It started as a compilation from earlier records made in the 1470s.The records include charters, petitions, tables of customs levied, acts made in the civic assemblies and proceedings of the corporation. The last entry is of a mayoral election in 1649, and originally recorded Charles II as King. This entry has been defaced to remove the reference to the king, presumably after the Cromwellian army took the city in 1650 (McEneaney and Ryan 2004). CONCLUSION The Medieval Museum was specified, constructed and opened to the public within the confines of an extraordinarily debilitating post-financial crisis climate. The detailed design and build were completed in a mere eighteen month period. The core build cost was c. 3.5 m Euros, with total overall development costs of c. 6 m Euros. The result is a huge success. Not only an attractive museum with a fine range of contents on display, some of international importance, the museum has also received a host of national and international architectural awards and is cornerstone of the regenerated historic area. The authors are indebted to the Museum Director, Eamonn McEneaney, and to Órla Scully, the lead archaeologist and site director, Waterford City Council, who worked on the development of the Medieval Museum. Both provided their time and considerable information to make this paper possible. Roland Crosskey and Sue Shaw T H E R O Y A L G U N P O W D E R M I L L S , BA L L I N C O L L I G , C O U N TY COR K Up until the establishment of the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills the Irish explosives industry had been centred around Dublin. Within a relatively short period of time, however, the Ballincollig mills had become the centre of this industry. Between 1794 and 1815 the mills were the largest in Ireland and amongst the most extensive in the former United Kingdom. By 1822 gunpowder production within the environs of Dublin had effectively ceased. Moreover, in the second main period of their use, between 1833 and 1903, during which they were the only gunpowder mills in Ireland, the Ballincollig mills appear to have been second in size only to Waltham Abbey in England. During the early part of its history, the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills, along 66 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns illus. 54. Ballincollig Powder Mill, Cork. (Photo: C. Rynne/W. O’Brien). with the adjacent cavalry and artillery barracks, formed part of an enormous militaryindustrial complex. It is the best-preserved industrial site of its type in Europe. The Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills were established by Charles Henry Leslie, a Cork banker and later proprietor of the River Lee Porter Brewery, and John Travers, in 1794. In that same year they acquired land near Ballincollig village, and constructed the original Inishcarra weir on the River Lee and laid out the gunpowder manufactory on the south bank. Good access to the port of Cork, some six miles to the east, was a critical factor in the choice of site, as production was clearly aimed at supplying the needs of the government. Nonetheless, further important criteria specific to the manufacture of gunpowder also had to be taken into consideration. In the first instance the site had to be sufficiently large and isolated to enable a notoriously hazardous series of processes to be carried out. Furthermore, as a number of these processes were mechanized, access to a water source which could be readily converted into energy was essential. In order to minimise the danger of chain-reaction type explosions, the buildings within the complex were well spaced out. This was particularly true of buildings in which gunpowder finishing processes were undertaken. In consequence, the main feeder channel within the complex (particularly in the period after 1804), had to cover a distance almost 2.5 km long. The latter did, however, also facilitate the water-borne transportation of materials around the entire site. In the post-1804 period this system of hydro-power/transportation canals became one of the unique features of the site. c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 67 Leslie and Travers’ manufactory occupied an area of just over ninety acres (compared to an area of over 431 acres when it came under Board of Ordnance control) situated in the eastern sector of the present complex. The main feeder canal ran 2 km from a point immediately above the weir at Inishcarra, to its outfall into the River Lee at a point immediately east of the incorporating mills. At the eastern end of the complex four millraces were drawn off from the main canal: two for the incorporating mills with two pairs of edge-runner stones) and one each for the composition mills and mixing house and the original corning house. The westernmost incorporating mill, which appears to have been substantially modified in the 1830s, was excavated in 1985, during which part of the foundations of Leslie’s original incorporating mill came to light. The other buildings in the original Ballincollig complex included a stove house, a charring (charcoal) house, a press house, a dusting house, a corning house, and sulphur and saltpetre refineries. Accommodation for the workforce, workshops and stabling were also provided. There was a lime kiln on the site, and it seems likely that the limestone quarries on the escarpment immediately south of the complex, which were later extensively used by the Board of Ordnance, were originally opened and utilised during the construction of the original complex. The only surviving features of Leslie and Travers’ manufactory which can be identified with any certainty are the original hydro-power/navigation channel (running west-east through the complex), incorporating mill units 1 and 2 and the canal bridge immediately to the east of the incorporating mills. In the first ten years of its operation the Ballincollig manufactory had, according to an English Board of Ordnance official, become a ‘highly productive and prosperous concern’. Security at the mills became an ever-present concern to the British military, who were obliged to monitor their production, particularly in the aftermath of the rebellion of 1798. Indeed, government policy at the time was to seek a monopoly of gunpowder manufacture in these islands, and it was in pursuit of this goal that the Board of Ordnance bought Leslie out in 1805. As Sir Henry Hardinge explained in 1828, Ballincollig ‘became one of the Ordnance Stations, both as being a convenient station for the embarcation of artillery from Cork for foreign service, as well as for the protection of the mills. In March 1805 the Board appointed its chief clerk of works for powder mills, Charles Wilkes, as superintendent of the Ballincollig mills and by the following June the Office of Ordnance at Ballincollig placed an advertisement in the Cork press looking for local ‘plumbers, glaziers, painters, coopers, masons, blacksmiths, copper-smiths, founders, ironmongers, stone cutters, millwrights and bricklayers’. Wilkes began by improving access to the complex from the old Killarney road to the north, by entirely rebuilding the Bridge at Inishcarra with twenty-four arches. The effective area of the mills, including administration buildings, a network of canals and the new cavalry barracks, was greatly expanded in the period 1806–15, and the greater part of the 431 acres involved was enclosed behind a high stone wall. Limestone was quarried on the escarpment immediately north of Oriel Court, and was used extensively in the construction of the new mill buildings, the canal network and the enclosing wall. The bedstones and edge runner stones used in the various refining and composition processes (see below), which were particularly fine-grained, are also likely to have been quarried here. Two lime kilns were also erected within the complex for the manufacture of lime mortar. Part of the fabric of one of these survives 68 c ou nt y c or k an d e nv i r o ns on the lands of Cork County Council’s sewerage works at Ballincollig. All told, the Board of Ordnance invested almost £127,000 in the development of the complex and on harbour facilities for its storage and transportation in the period 1805–15. A further twelve incorporating mill units were built between 1805 and 1809 along with a new steam stove house, a glazing house, a fire engine house, a saw mill, a cylinder house, an extensive range of craftmens’ workshops, drying houses, new saltpetre and sulphur refineries and a new gunpowder magazine. A series of three charge houses were also built in the incorporating mills section of the complex. Nearly all of the water-powered installations were powered by breast-fed waterwheels with an undershot action, with diameters ranging from a maximum of 21 ft, in the case of the Board of Ordnance incorporating mills, to 16 ft, as in the new charcoal grinding mill. The vast majority of the buildings referred to above still survive in various states of dilapidation, and while these were added to and modified when the mills were returned to private ownership in the 1830s, the layout of the complex as it survives today is still essentially that designed and implemented by Charles Wilkes. Upon its closure in 1815, Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills was the largest installation of its type in Ireland, and one of the largest in these islands. The Board of Ordnance’s substantial investment in the Ballincollig manufactory was closely linked to the expanding military demand for gunpowder during the Napoleonic Wars. But in their aftermath the demand for gunpowder in the British industry as a whole slumped by almost 75%, and Ballincollig, along with a number of gunpowder mills in Britain, was closed down. Production at Ballincollig ceased sometime in 1815, and the entire complex was mothballed on the orders of the Duke of Wellington, but as the machinery within the complex could not be sold it was ‘painted, oiled and taken care of’. Some of the machinery appears to have been dismantled, and while by 1828 the incorporating mills were described as ‘much gone to decay’ and the mixing house as ‘in very bad order’, the overall condition of the mills and plant was as good as might be expected after 15 years of disuse. In 1831 some items of plant were put up for auction, and by May 1832 the machinery within the complex was said to be ‘in a most dilapidated state’. In July of 1832 a decision was taken to remove some of the machinery to the Waltham Abbey mills in England. By this stage the weir and canal system had become so run down that it was impossible to work the water-powered pumps for the barracks’ water supply. In 1832 it seemed that the mills would never operate again, but by the end of the following year they had been returned to private ownership under a new and more enterprising management. In 1833 the Board of Ordnance sold the mills to the Liverpool firm of Tobin and Horsefall for £15,000, and within a short period of time, work on the re-commissioning of the mill canals was underway. Thomas (later Sir Thomas) Tobin (1807–81), the oldest son of Thomas Tobin of Liverpool, was dispatched to County Cork to become managing director of the rejuvenated mills. The buildings and plant inherited by Tobin had not been operated for some eighteen years, but more importantly these were designed for gunpowder manufacture in the period before 1815. Under Tobin’s management the mills were transformed into one of the most up-to-date manufactories in Europe. Tobin built an additional eight incorporating mill units, four in the 1840s and four in the 1850s, to supplement the operation of the pre-1815 mills. The c o u n t y c o r k a n d en v i r o n s 69 company had been in production since the summer of 1835, with production gradually increasing from 7,517 casks in 1836 to 17,738 casks in 1842. The decline of the gunpowder industry was brought about by the introduction of chemically manufactured explosives such as nitrocellulose (guncotton) and nitroglycerine, and ultimately by Alfred Nobel’s dynamite. The so-called ‘smokeless powders’ which became increasingly used for small arms ammunition towards the end of the nineteenth century also eroded the traditionally strong market for ‘black gunpowder’. From the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, gunpowder manufacturers found it increasingly difficult to compete with manufacturers of the ‘new explosives’, and were all but powerless to arrest the decline in demand for gunpowder. In its heyday the Ballincollig factory’s markets included most of Ireland, the Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire and South Wales coalfields, Africa, South America and the West Indies. But after 1880 exports from Ballincollig, which had previously averaged around 30,000 barrels per annum, fell steadily, and after 1890 sales rarely rose above 13,000 barrels. In the 1880s the Ballincollig Company attempted to arrest the decline by introducing new brands, the Royal Premier (RP) and Extra Treble Strong (ETS) varieties, but these developments could do little to prevent the substitution of black powder with smokeless powders such as cordite. In 1889 the mills, which had for a long period manufactured powder for the African market, were refurbished for the manufacture of powder for government contracts. However, as the kegs for this powder were specially manufactured at the Royal Arsenal, the Ballincollig coopers who had formerly made kegs for the African powder were made redundant. 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