House — medieval in Cahirguillamore (smallcounty By.)

In pasture, on the former deer park of Cahir Guillamore demesne, 125m W of a townland boundary with Rockbarton. Within southern portion of field system (LI031-041001-) and within deserted medieval settlement (LI031-041009-), to the immediate N of House 2 (LI031-041008-). Not depicted on OSi historic maps. According to Dowd (1896, 80), this house forms part of an extensive settlement that ‘…have been assumed to be the foundations of extensive buildings, and modern work refers to them as being “the remains of an ancient city of great extent”. Upstanding monument identified as a rectangular-shaped earthwork on aerial image and annotated on key to aerial image (Ó Ríordáin and Hunt 1942, 40-41; Figures 1 and 2, to N of Fort A). Ó Ríordáin and Hunt (ibid, 43-47) refers to this monument as House 1 and describes it as following: ‘Low grass covered mounds about two feet high, sloping outwards to the surrounding field, and inward on all sides to a central depression. The bank was fairly continuous, though at the north-western corner of House I its line was marked by a series of rounded knolls and there were slight breaks in other places in both houses. On excavation, it was seen that the walls were built of stone with well-formed straight inner and outer faces formed of stones either with natural flat surfaces or dressed for the purpose. Both within and without, the slope of the bank consisted of fallen stone from the wall, mixed with yellow clay and humus, and the ground around and inside was covered with fallen stones. In the centre of the enclosure, the depth of turf and humus was only three inches, and below it was the natural bedrock of the hill. This had almost the appearance of an artificial cobbling as it was flat and seamed and fissured in all directions, the rounded pebbles of decaying limestone giving the impression of a floor artificially laid down. These cracks were filled with a fine dark soil containing a few small gravel stones which served to level the, otherwise lumpy, floor. The spill from the walls consisted of large stones mixed with yellow clay and small stones which had formed the mortar of the wall, and which still remained in position in the standing portions. When this spill was removed, a dark black layer of carbonised wood, one and a half inches thick and eighteen inches broad, was found running round the whole of the interior, close to the foot of the wall. This was covered with a layer of clay between two and three inches thick, free from stone, underlying the spill from the body of the wall. The carbonised band in its turn covered a second clay layer of the same breadth and thickness: under this was the rock floor with its filling of dark refuse. This black layer thus sandwiched between two layers of clay consisted of remains of sticks ranging from half an inch to one inch in thickness. We would suggest that it represented the wattle lining of the walls? the clay on which it lay being the face applied to the wattle to render the wall smooth and flat, and that which lay upon it being the foundation on the stone face of the wall into which the wattle had been pressed. The sequence of events seems to have been that the outer face of the wall fell first, then the wattle skeleton fell in decay, and finally the clay foundation on the actual wall itself came down, covering the remains of the wattle and sealing them in. Six feet six inches from the west end of the house, and close against the inside of the north wall, was a rectangular pit in the rock formed by the removal of some of the decayed limestone. This pit, which measured 12 inches (0.3m) by 24 inches (0.6m) long and was 9 inches (0.22m) deep, contained fine dark soil and some packing stones, as if for the base of a post. In a corresponding position against the south wall of the house was another post hole of the same size. This had evidently been empty at the time of the fall of the wall lining, as it was filled with the fallen clay from the face of the wall. From their position it seems clear that these post holes held the posts supporting a partition which divided the house into two apartments. The rock floor ceased abruptly close to the base of the west wall and parallel to it. The floor here was levelled with a filling of yellow clay, and the footings of the west wall were 6 inches (0.15m) below the rock floor level on a dark filling. Towards the east end of the house, the floor was more uneven, and in the north-east corner the limestone had broken away, forming an irregular pit. This ran up to and under the east wall which was built over it. A pavement of irregularly-shaped limestone flags had been laid down to level the floor at this end of the house, but it did not entirely cover the pit, the west and shallower end of which was filled with fine black soil containing a few bones mixed with stones. The debris of the wall lay on top of this paving which did not extend across the whole width of the house but only occupied half this width extending five feet towards the west. The angles of the ground plan of the walls were not quite right angles, nor were the walls laid out as perfect straight lines, but the end walls bowed slightly outwards, and the long walls also but less obviously so. The external dimensions of the house were 43 feet by 20 feet (13m x 6.1m). The entrance doorway was placed in the north wall, slightly to the east of the centre and exactly midway in the wall between the post hole of the partition and the inner east corner. It was splayed slightly inwards, being 3 feet (0.91m) wide on the outside face of the wall and 6 inches (0.15m) wider at the inner face. The internal jambs were strengthened by a thickening of the walls in this region, the thickness where pierced by the door being 6 inches (0.15m) greater than the average, sloping away on either side of the inner opening to die into the inner face two feet (0.6m) from the doorway. A sill formed of three stones, of an average thickness of 4 inches (0.1m) and a width of 8 inches (0.2m), lay across the threshold midway in the wall. This was an integral part of the construction, the easternmost stone being built into the base of the wall on this side for half its length. The south wall close to the south-west corner was formed of smaller stones than in the adjacent portions. There had originally been a second doorway in this position, and at some later period it had been blocked up (PI. II, 3). The adjoining wall was thicker than the filling, and the original jambs formed of larger stones showed clearly, but were not splayed like those of the north door. This filling was built into the doorway and not bonded in on either This filling was built into the doorway and not bonded in on either side. The slight break in the wall formed by the built-up door had no doubt been hidden under the wattle and mud plaster, as the carbonised wattle and the clay of the wall face continued without a break at the foot of the filling as round the whole of the interior. The position of the hearth was represented by a large patch of yellowish-brown ash that lay slightly to the south-west of the entrance door, towards the centre of the house. The exterior of the walls, when cleared of spill and fallen stone, presented a similar appearance to the interior of the house, the stones being mostly large with flat faces. The external corners of the house were much rounded, giving it almost the form of an "oval rectangle." There was a layer of clay at the base of the wall apparently fallen from the face, but no sign of wattle. The floor outside the house was the natural rock, as in the interior, and here also the cracks were filled with fine dark soil, but with the addition of gravel pebbles to fill the interstices and level the surface. In the region of the north-west corner the fault in the bedrock, noticed in the interior, was revealed as an abrupt cessation of the rock floor which was continued by a paving or rough artificial co