What is recorded here

Habitation site in Agharrow is a habitation site in Agharrow, County Sligo, Ireland. Staad Abbey in Agharrow stands beside a cobble beach where excavation revealed a wall of beach stones beneath wind-blown sand and the church foundations. Bowl-shaped pits cut into the same sand deposits in the lowest cliff layers. These features pre-date the late medieval church and early medieval passage, with some possibly reaching back to prehistoric times.

In lowlying coastal pasture bordering a cobble beach, in the vicinity of Staad Abbey church (SL005-022001-). Survey and excavation (00E0235) in 2000 and 2001 revealed evidence of an early phase of settlement activity, pre-dating the late medieval church (SL005-022001-) and the early medieval Man-made underground passage (SL005-022002-). A horizon of bowl-shaped pits was recorded, dug into deep deposits of wind-blown sand, in the lowest stratigraphic levels in the eroding land-edge cliff face (McCormick et al. 2000, 15-17), and, in a trench excavated in the space between the church and the sea cliff, a wall built of beach cobbles underlay a layer of wind-blown sand, which in turn underlay the foundations of the church (Dunne, McCormick, and O’Sullivan 2001, 1). These features have not been precisely dated, but their position in the stratigraphy of the site suggested that some may be prehistoric in date. Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 4 July 2017

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