House — medieval in Inis Gé Thuaidh

On a terrace on the NE slope of a mound (MA023-014003-), known as Bailey Mór, at the SE end of Inishkea North. This medieval house is a National Monument in state ownership (no. 379). It consists of a single room (int. dim. 2.3m E–W; 3.1m N–S), rectangular in plan internally, with a doorway in the N wall and a window in the S wall, opposite the doorway. It is conjoined to another house (MA023-014007-) on its E side. It was excavated in 1938 by Françoise Henry (1945, 134-6; House C). The walls (int. H c. 1.3m), which survive largely intact, were constructed by lining a foundation pit with large upright slabs, on top of which slightly corbelled courses of horizontally laid slabs were built. The interior, therefore, is sunken; the inner wall face of all four walls is visible but the exterior of the W and S walls is flush with exterior ground level. The outer face of the wall at N is formed of large upright slabs, and a paved entrance passage (Wth 0.55m) pierces this wall midway along its length, leading to an inner doorway (Wth 0.58m) defined by two matching upright jambs (H 1-1.2m). The window is reduced now to a broken-out gap (Wth 0.54m) at the ragged top of the S wall. The S, W and N wall are 0.8-1m in width at top; the E wall is wider (Wth 1.3m) and is shared with the adjoining house (MA023-014007-). There is no internal access between the two houses. The roof does not survive, but Henry found that the ‘top layer [D c. 0.8m] of sand filling the building was full of enormous slabs, obviously fallen from the roof’ (ibid. 134), and she suggested that it had been of corbelled construction. The excavation revealed an area (c. 1.5m x 1.2m) in the N corner partly defined by low upright stones, which probably served as a sleeping space. Two large hearths, each c. 0.3m in depth, one superimposed upon the other, occupied much of the central interior space. Masses of seashells filled the W and S corners of the room. Finds recovered from various levels of the sandy layers filling the house included a stone basin, an iron dagger, iron nails, a sherd of pottery, a bone comb, a possible bone spindle-whorl and bone points, and a fragment of a shoulder blade of a whale. The faunal remains from the level of the hearth included bones of cattle, sheep, pig, hare and fish, seal, fragments of crab claw and sea-urchin; from the SW section of the floor a small cat; from the upper sand layer, pony, bird, fish. Charcoal fragments from the lower hearth were identified as ash, hawthorn and birch (Henry 1945, 134-6). A sample of the hazel charcoal was radiocarbon dated as part of a 21st-century research project re-evaluating Henry’s excavations; it returned a calibrated date (2 sigma) of AD 1175-1269 (Greene 2009, 137 & 155). This is one of a cluster of houses on the Bailey Mór; there was a house (MA023-014004-) a few meters to SE, and another (MA023-014009-) a few meters to N. Attached images: MA023-014008-_01.JPG House viewed from SE MA023-014008-_02.JPG House viewed from SE MA023-014008-_03.JPG Viewed from N ; at L is the broad grass-covered wall shared with another house (MA023-014007-) MA023-014008-_04.JPG Viewed from S; break in wall in foreground opposite doorwasymarks position of window MA023-014008-_05.JPG Entrance passage in N wall MA023-014008-_06.JPG Doorway viewed from interior Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 5 July 2023 Greene, S 2009 Settlement, identity and change on the Atlantic Island of North-West Co. Mayo c. AD400-1100 (2 vols.) Unpublished PhD thesis submitted to University College Dublin.