Bawn in Shinrone

This levelled castle site and bawn wall are now located in the centre of a small housing estate known as Castle Court which is located south of the Main Street at the western end of the village of Shinrone in south Offaly. According to the OS Letters of 1838-40 the 'castle stood at the rear of Mr. Dancer's house in Shinrone Town. The yard attached to the house is called the Castle Yard, and some of the wall belonging to the castle is said to be now used as the garden wall. Today only a short stretch of the southern side of the bawn wall measuring c. 22m in length and c. 1.5m high survives upstanding in the centre of a modern housing estate. Before the recent modern development this bawn wall formed part of the walled garden of a house which fronted onto the main street of Shinrone. Originally the bawn wall may have enclosed a rectangular area measuring 33m north-south by 50m east-west which enclosed a castle site that was located c. 23m to the northeast of the upstanding bawn wall. A communal green area in the modern housing estate marks the location of this castle site of which there are no visible surface remains. According to local information the area where the castle is depicted on the current ed. OS 6” map is known as Bawnmore. Archaeological monitoring carried out by the Archaeology Company under licence no. 04E0168 in 2004 revealed a circular feature measuring 1.9m in diameter which was located 5.3m north of the bawn wall and may have been the remains of a well associated with the castle or a landscape feature associated with the later walled garden. This feature was backfilled and was preserved in situ as it was not going to be impacted on by the modern development. Two cut stone fragments from a medieval window of the castle were recovered from the east quadrant of the housing development and a further three cut stones were found in the western side of the development at a distance of c. 40m northwest of the castle site. Monitoring took place under licence no. 04E0168 at Main Street, Shinrone, Co. Offaly. The proposed development lies within the curtilage of a protected structure and the site includes the site of a castle (SMR 42:25). Monitoring was carried out of topsoil-stripping and the excavation of foundation trenches in the walled garden. Two semi-detached houses will be constructed in this area, which is located c. 22m west of the site of the castle. The northern and eastern boundary walls of the garden were demolished. Part of the bawn wall of the castle survives in the southern boundary wall. Fencing was erected surrounding the bawn wall as requested in the planning condition. A potential archaeological feature, which will not be impacted upon by the development, was uncovered within House 1, located at the southern side of the site. It comprised a circular deposit filled with loose medium-brown sandy gravel with occasional mortared fragment inclusions. It may be an infilled pit, well or garden feature. Very truncated features associated with the walled garden, which are relatively modern, were uncovered during the course of topsoil-stripping. No archaeological features were impacted upon during the groundworks phase. A final phase of monitoring is proposed for groundworks associated with the entrance at the north of the site (Excavations Bulletin 2004). Ellen O'Carroll, The Archaeology Company, 17 Castle Street, Dalkey, Co. Dublin.